2016

This bill would require the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DOITT) to require City websites to use web analytics to help optimize their websites. Web analytics are tools used to measure a website’s use, traffic, traffic sources and analyze other web data for the purposes of improving the effectiveness of a website.

This bill would require the mayor to establish and maintain a public online database to contain certain information for every agency procurement that exceeds the small purchase limits. This information includes applicable requests for proposals or public notices, submitted responses, and details about the awarded contract (such as the name of the contractor, term of the contract, and dollar amount of the contract).

How New York City spends $82 billion would be more transparent, with a city budget that is searchable and computer readable instead of printed or in lengthy PDFs, by requiring the budget to be searchable, posted in open formats, and available for third parties to “build an app for that.”

The legislation would align New York City data standards for its budget with the Federal standards in the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (DATA Act) that lead to the adoption of eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) so that any software built for the Federal budget could easily be used with the city’s budget like USAspending.gov.

Match Every New York City Resident’s Small Dollars

New York City’s campaign finance system matches the first $175 of contributions from residents by 6 to 1 and gives participating candidates a partial public matching grant of up to 55% of the spending limit in competitive races. This leaves more than 1/3 of the funds outstanding between the public matching grant and the spending limit, which must be reached to be competitive. The “big dollar gap” for Mayor is $2.5 million.

Introduction 1130-A by Council Members Kallos, Lander, and Cabrera, increases the public matching grant from an arbitrary partial match of 55% to a full match. Every small dollar raised from city residents would be matched 6 to 1. Candidates could still raise contributions of $4,950 for Mayor, but would be incentivized to seek small donations from many more residents by matching every small dollar.

• Reduce Big Money by filling the “big dollar gap” with small dollars matched with a full public matching grant.
• Increase the Number of Small Donors by a minimum of 50% for candidates seeking a full public matching grant.

This bill would amend the New York city charter to provide for an alternative method for candidates for the offices of mayor, comptroller, public advocate, borough president and member of the city council to get onto the ballot by allowing such candidates to get onto the ballot by raising the threshold amount of funding to qualify for participation in the campaign finance board’s small dollar matching program.

This bill would require the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications to establish a system where a single user identification and password can be used to access all publicly accessible websites that require user identification or a password.

This bill would amend the charter and administrative code to include reference to an authorized tribunal of the office of administrative trials and hearings when making reference to the tribunal functions of the environmental control board, to reflect the consolidated tribunal structure of the office of administrative trials and hearings.

This bill would require the City Council to set forth rules prohibiting Council Members from earning certain outside income and would make the position of Council Member full-time. The provisions of this bill and any rules promulgated pursuant to this bill would not apply to any Council Member who has engaged in another occupation, profession or employment during the current Council session, who intends to continue to engage in such occupation, profession or employment for the remainder of such session, and who submits a letter to the Speaker of the Council by March 1, 2016 describing such engagement and intention.