Testimony of Susan Lerner, Executive Director of

Common Cause/New York before the Council of the City of New York

Committee on Government Operations

Chair, Gale Brewer

February 9, 2010

T2010-0178
Organizational Meeting

Good afternoon. Thank you Chair Brewer and members of the Government Operations Committee for
this opportunity to speak before you here today. My name is Susan Lerner and I am the Executive
Director of Common Cause/New York. Common Cause/New York is a non-partisan, non-profit citizens’
lobby and a leading force in the battle for honest and accountable government.

Before I begin, Chair Brewer, I would first like to congratulate you on being named as leader of this
committee. Your work on the Technology in Government Committee in recent years has helped to push
critical issues forward, including using new technology to open up Council proceedings and setting new
standards for government openness. As you take the helms of this critical Committee, we look forward
to working with you and the rest of the Committee to continue pushing these and other initiatives.

I would like to discuss three primary issues that we hope the Committee will be able to focus on
during the coming year. First, we will urge this Committee, specifically, and the Council, more
generally, to conduct more extensive oversight of the federal stimulus funding made available to the
City under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act). Second, we would like
to discuss performance standards and measurements, including concerns recently raised about the
numbers underlying the New York Police Department’s CompStat program. Third, we will make specific
recommendations regarding the Charter Revision Commission which Mayor Bloomberg has publicly
committed to forming.

Provide Active Oversight of Recovery Act Funds

I regret to say that the New York City Council has been not lived up to its role to fully and vigorously
oversee public expenditures going through City agencies as they relate to the Recovery Act. Governor
Paterson, through Executive Order 31 of 2009, established the New York Stimulus Oversight Panel.
Joined by the Inspectors General of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Medicaid and the
Commissioner of the Division of Human Rights, the State’s Inspector General is charged as its Chair to
conduct aggressive oversight, including to prevent and detect waste, fraud, abuse, discrimination and
mismanagement related to the use of ARRA funds. The panel was granted subpoena power and issues
reports, the first of which is expected in the coming weeks.

And while its results are yet to be determined, the Stimulus Oversight Panel is a powerful model for
oversight, and one that bears a resemblance in a number of ways that we and our fellow members of
the NYS Stimulus Oversight Working Group had been pushing since last Winter. City Council
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 Committees, including this one, could perform similar oversight functions in a wide range of ways, and
we urge this Committee to take that on forcefully.

Ensuring the Integrity and Usefulness of Government Reporting Standards

The Government Operations Committee can play a critical role moving forward regarding to address
precisely how our government operates and what its impacts are. Under Mayor Bloomberg, the City’s
Mayor’s Management Report (MMR) has continued to be improved and expanded. A number of the
measurements have been dropped from the report, however, and this has happened without public
input. Reasonable individuals and organizations can differ on what measurements should be included in
such a report and surely there should be concerns for ‘information overload’ but it is important that as
the MMR continue to mature the public is able to play an active role and statistics and reporting
measures that are relied upon are not arbitrarily removed. It is time to examine whether the 2008
reduction in information provided in the MMR reducing 2,500 indicators down to 1,200— has resulted
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in important information not reaching members of the public.

Common Cause/NY applauds the efforts of Committee Chair Brewer in seeking to have New York City
adopt open data standards. We hope that that effort will continue. We also suggest that this
committee examine the City’s record in responding to FOl requests. Our experience indicates that the
record is spotty; some departments have streamlined the process while others have a very poor record
of responsiveness.

Also, as with any reporting scheme, human error and human instincts must be considered. In a recent
survey of retired police commanders, conducted by Dr. John Eterno of Molloy College and Dr. Eli
Silverman of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, more than half of the respondents said they and
others were aware of those who where ‘cooking the books’ due to pressure from higher-ups in the New
York Police Department in order to meet internal pressures under the CompStat program. There should
be a full investigation to better understand if the results of this survey are correct and, if so, what
actually caused these individuals to inflate their numbers or deflate the numbers, as it were. Such an
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investigation would serve to better understand some of the problems encountered with this particular
reporting and performance mechanism and learn valuable lessons to ensure that any such problems are
not experienced in other agencies.

Improve the Charter Revision Process

There have been repeated indications that the Mayor may appoint a Charter Revision Commission this
year. Should the Mayor move forward with a Charter Revision Commission, we believe that there is a
role for the City Council, even though it does not have direct authority in the election process under
state law. There should be a public discussion of the appropriate criteria for appointing members to the
Commission and this Committee is in an excellent position to help animate that discussion. I should
note that Citizens Union is sponsoring a panel discussion on Charter Revision in conjunction with Baruch
College this evening, which is an excellent beginning to the public dialogue which we need to have on
this topic.

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We believe that the Committee has a role to play in insuring that any Charter Revision Commission that
is appointed is broadly representative of the diversity of New York. In Mayor Koch’s Administration,
several individuals were appointed to the Charter Revision Commission who were suggested by other
elected officials. We hope that this Committee can help create a public climate where the public
expects that the Mayor will solicit input from the City Council, the two other city-wide officials and the
borough presidents, in order to insure that a Charter Revision Commission will have a more open and
lively debate than in the past.

We also believe that this Committee has a role to play in insuring that any Charter Revision Commission
is independent and objective. Mayor Bloomberg’s past charter revision commissions have often been
staffed by then-current employees of City government. The better model, in our view, is the 1987 and
1989 charter revision commissions. There the chair and commissioners hired academics and
researchers with credentials independent of City Hall, such an approach ensures that differing points of
view will have an airing in the commission’s debates.

Finally, Common Cause/NY believes that there is a role for this committee to play in insuring that any
Charter Revision Commission be given enough time to conduct a thorough review and for the public to
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have a meaningful say through public hearings in all boroughs. The last several charter commissions
began work in May, June or July, which we believe is too truncated a schedule to fully engage the public.

I would also point out that there are good models in other cities’ experience with charter revisions,
heretical as that observation may be.