Int. No. 891-A
By Council Members Lander, Vann, Brewer, Chin, Dromm, Fidler, James, Mark-Viverito, Mendez, Rose, Van Bramer, Williams, Wills, Gonzalez, Rodriguez, Ferreras, Barron, Jackson, Gennaro, Koppell, Greenfield, Lappin and Halloran
A Local Law to amend the New York city charter, in relation to requiring the mayor to submit an annual report on poverty.
Be it enacted by the Council as follows:
Section 1. Section 16 of the New York city charter, as added by the vote of the electors on November 7, 1989, is amended to read as follows:
§ 16. [Report] Reports on social indicators and poverty. a. The mayor shall submit an annual report to the council, borough presidents, and community boards analyzing the social, economic and environmental health of the city and proposing strategies for addressing the issues raised in such analysis. The report shall present and analyze data on the social, economic and environmental conditions which are significantly related to the jurisdiction of the agencies responsible for the services specified in section twenty seven hundred four, the health and hospitals corporation, and such other agencies as the mayor shall from time to time specify. The report shall include the generally accepted indices of unemployment, poverty, child welfare, housing quality, homelessness, health, physical environment, crime, and such other indices as the mayor shall require by executive order or the council shall require by local law. Such report shall be submitted no later than sixty days before the community boards are required to submit budget priorities pursuant to section two hundred thirty and shall contain: (1) the reasonably available statistical data, for the current and previous five years, on such conditions in the city and, where possible, in its subdivisions; and a comparison of this data with such relevant national, regional or other standards or averages as the mayor deems appropriate; (2) a narrative discussion of the differences in such conditions among the subdivisions of the city and of the changes over time in such conditions; and (3) the mayor's short and long term plans, organized by agency or by issue, for responding to the significant problems evidenced by the data presented in the report.
b. No later than March thirty-first of each year, the mayor shall submit an annual report to the council, borough presidents and community boards that shall contain (1) a description of the city's efforts to reduce the rate of poverty in the city as determined by the poverty measure and poverty threshold established by the New York city center for economic opportunity or its successor or by an analogous measure based upon the recommendations of the national academy of sciences; (2) information on the number and percentage of city residents living below the poverty threshold and the number and percentage of city residents living between one hundred one percent and one hundred fifty percent of the poverty threshold; (3) poverty data disaggregated by generally accepted indices of family composition, ethnic and racial groups, age ranges, employment status, and educational background, and by borough for the most recent year for which data is available and by neighborhood for the most recent five year average for which data is available, along with a comparison of this data with such relevant national, regional or other standards or averages as deemed appropriate; (4) budgetary data, with a description of and outcomes on the programs and resources allocated to reduce the poverty rate in the city and estimates on the poverty reducing effects of major public benefit programs available throughout the city and how such programs serve key subgroups of the city's population including, but not limited to, children under the age of eighteen, the working poor, young persons age sixteen to twenty-four, families with children, and residents age sixty-five or older; and (5) a description of the city's short and long term plans to reduce poverty.
§ 2. This local law shall become effective immediately upon enactment.
TBD
12/11/2013 8:26 PM