Queens needs the money: QBP hears budget needs throughout borough
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Queens Borough President Donovan Richards (top left) heard testimony from over 200 organizations and institutions Monday, including Queens Defenders Executive Director Lori Zeno (top right), Community Board 2 District Manager Debra Markell (bottom left) and Center for Court Innovation Executive Director Erika McSwain. Screenshots via Queens Borough President's office/Zoom
By Jacob Kaye
Queens community boards, colleges, hospitals and a number of nonprofits and institutions came before the Queens borough president’s office to request a slice of the borough’s budget in the coming year.
Queens Borough President Donovan Richards hosted a hearing on the Queens Borough Board’s Fiscal Year 2023 budget on Monday, March 7. Over 200 people and groups signed up to testify Monday, pushing the early morning hearing deep into the afternoon. The number of groups testifying their monetary needs to Richards and his staff broke a record for the meeting, the borough president said.
Monday’s hearing was the latest step in the city’s budget process, which began with Mayor Eric Adams’ presentation of his preliminary budget in mid-February. The $98.54 billion proposed budget would see slashes to a number of agencies, including the Department of Education, the Department of the Aging, the Department of Youth Development and the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
The City Council’s Finance Committee heard testimony last week from a number of city officials on the budget, and largely expressed concern over the proposed cuts and how they might hamper the city’s ability to recover financially from the effects of the pandemic.
Richards was less critical than his council colleagues in government of the budget proposal Monday.
“The last three fiscal years have presented challenges to the city and, in addition, the national economy has still not fully recovered from the pandemic,” Richards said at the start of the hearing. “While I am optimistic that we are on our way, economic recovery has been uneven with the unpredictable waves of COVID-19.”
The Queens Borough Board, in the coming weeks, will craft a budget request for the borough based on testimony provided Monday and through formal budget requests made to the office.
Addressing flooding and storm infrastructure was at the top of a large number of community board requests Monday – money for upgrading the borough’s sewer system was a request made by nearly every community board district manager who testified.
“The residents of our community must dredge through excessive rain water flooding their homes,” said Florence Koulouris, the district manager of Community Board 1, which covers Astoria, Long Island City and Woodside. “The basic flooding that continuously happens has not been addressed and causes significant damage… This must be addressed.”
The same sentiment was expressed by district managers from Community Boards 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 11. Flooding, once seen as an issue concentrated in Southeast Queens, is experienced by residents from Northwest Queens to the borough’s easternmost neighborhoods. It’s also an issue the borough president knows well – in the City Council, he represented a number of neighborhoods hit hardest by Sandy during the years of storm recovery.
“Throughout Queens…the infrastructure is choking,” said Frank Gulliscio, the district manager of Community Board 6, which covers Forest Hills and Rego Park. “As a victim of Sandy, we had a devastating infrastructure with impacts of Hurricane Ida…death, destruction of our local infrastructure, what’s been done to CB6?”
“What’s been done to fix the infrastructure? Sandbags? Where are the plans? Where are the solutions?” he added. We need larger sewage, improved drainage and the list goes on and on and on.”
Hurricane Ida, which touched down in New York City in September, damaged Queens more than any other borough – the storm killed 13 in New York City, most of them in Queens. Eleven of the people who died were trapped in flooded basement apartments.
Attempting to address flooding concerns isn’t new – nearly a dozen city-funded projects aimed at making Southeast Queens more resilient have been started and completed in the past five years.
In the days following Ida, former City Councilmember I. Daneek Miller, whose own home was flooded during the storm, said despite all the work, more needs to be done.
“We're still here today and so there has to be oversight,” Miller said in September. “And we have to figure out what we're not doing right.”
Another issue at the top of a number of community boards’ priorities lists was public safety.
Amid the recent spike in crime and Adams’ efforts to bulk up policing and anti-violence programs to bring down gun violence in the city, several community boards expressed a need for additional officers.
Representatives from Community Board 5, which covers Ridgewood, Maspeth, Middle Village and Glendale, and Community Board 10 said their precincts are in need of more officers.
“We have fewer police officers than we need,” said Gary Giordano, CB 5’s district manager. “We would like an additional 20 officers assigned to the 104th Precinct.”
“They need to be trained well so they don’t over react to difficult situations,” he added. “But the great majority of police officers have done well at protecting the public.”
The 104th Precinct has seen an increase in most major crime categories in the past year, with the exception of petty larceny, shootings, felony assault and murder – there has been one shooting and no murders in the precint this year, according to NYPD data. The situation is similar in the 106th Precinct, whose community board also made a request for more officers.
Despite proposed cuts to a number of agencies that provide and contract with nonprofit organizations that provide social services like youth and senior services, nonprofits from around the borough and the city came to the Queens Borough Board to request increased funding Monday.
Also providing testimony were a number of criminal justice organizations in Queens, including the Queens Defenders, the Youth Justice Network and Center for Court Innovation.
Lori Zeno, the executive director of Queens Defenders, called Adams’ proposed budget a “mixed bag” that featured welcomed initiatives but also “deep concerns.”
“The mayor’s renewed focus on stargesises that will lead to over policing have the potential to increase obstacles for youth residing in Black and brown communities that have been disproportionately impacted by policing and policies rooted in systematic racism,” Zeno said. “I implore the mayor to instead focus on strategies that can uplift our city’s youth from a strengths-based perspective and provide options that they can access year round.”
Though Monday’s testimony doesn’t count as formal budget requests, those requests can still be made at queensbp.org.
