New York City Government (Term Paper Sample)

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New York City Government
Introduction
The city council of New York has the mandate to monitor the performance and operations of city agencies, make decisions on land use within the city, and approve the city’s budget. Through the budget, the council is able to establish priorities, allocate resources, and set policy agendas. While the mayor proposes the budget, the council has the sole responsibility of approving it.
Budgetary Process
The process initiates with a preliminary budget, which is presented to the council by the mayor. The council then holds public hearings on the fiscal implications of the preliminary budget, community budget priorities, and the programs’ objectives. Agency officials, community boards, borough representatives, and public members are allowed to testify about their needs. The council then issues its findings and recommendations about the preliminary budget (Budget Process). The findings are comprehensive results of the preliminary budget, which also includes policy recommendations, revenues, and expenses. It should also include a summary of all the meetings held by the council’s committees.
The mayor then submits the proposed executive budget to the council along with schedules outlining all the proposals in the budget in full detail. The mayor also submits a budget message, including the major programs, the economic and fiscal conditions of the city, the objectives and projects in the budget, the tax base of the city, and detailed explanations of the components in the budget. The council then conducts public hearings as it does for the preliminary budget (Budget Process). After the hearings, the Mayor's Office of Budget Management, and the City Council's Finance department negotiate to furnish the house with a bargained and evenhanded budget. After the step, the council then votes on the budget after which the mayor may reject any increases the council has made on the budget. However, the mayor cannot reject any decreases made by the council.
Operating Budget
The operation budget is the amount of money that the mayor and the city council has appropriated to the agency to undertake its mandate. The operating budget is structured into different levels. These levels provide varying detail levels. The most general level in the operating budget is the unit of appropriation. At this level, the council adopts and approves the city’s expense budget. The next level is the responsibility center; this is an organizational unit within the agency with an identifiable manager who manages the unit. The next detail level is the budget code. This is a four-digit code that is assigned to a schedule within the agency and identifies the allocations made on the schedule in terms of its unit of appropriation, fund class, responsibility center, local programs, and control category (Budget Process).
The lowest detail level in the budget is the object code. This is the level, which breaks down spending into a three-digit code that classifies expenditures in accordance with the Chart of Accounts issued by the Comptroller. Finally, the operating budget includes a summary of the funding. This shows the funds or amounts allocated to every agency by the city, state, and federal governments.
Capital Budget
The capital budget is a plan for investment in infrastructure and other areas. It allocates funding for the construction of facilities, the purchase of property, the purchase and installation of major equipment, and the improvement of the already existing facilities. This budget is a representation of a four-year capital budget (Budget Process). The first year represents the planned capital spending for the upcoming year while the other years are an estimation of the spending required to complete every project in the capital budget and also new projects anticipated in the next three years.
The sources of funding for the projects included in the capital budget include city funding and non-city funding. City funding comes from the sale of bonds. These bonds are for set periods of time. The money from bond sales is dedicated to the current costs associated with running projects. The interest and principal due on the outstanding bonds are paid from the appropriated money in the expense budget (Budget Process). Non-city funding is the money from state, federal, and private sources; these funds are dedicated to specific projects. The capital commitment of the city is the measure of expenses planned for capital projects in the course of the financial year. If the capital budget committed during the course of the present fiscal year is not appropriated, it is routinely rolled over to the next fiscal year.
Revenue and Capital Expenses
Revenue expenses include the recurring expenses of the city government. These include salaries, rental fees, goods, contractual services equipment, supplies and fuel, and telephone payments. Such expenses occur from time to time. Revenue expenses are planned for in the expense budget. Conversely, capital expenses include non-recurring expenses on permanent and long-term projects.
Revenue Sources
The city gets revenues from a number of sources that include user charges, local taxes, and miscellaneous revenues. Taxes account for approximately 55 percent of the total revenues, making them the largest source of revenue. Close to a third of the revenue is accounted for by the state and federal governments, and the remaining portion comes from transfers and miscellaneous receipts. The city imposes different revenues to generate revenue.
One of these taxes is the real estate tax; the real property tax is imposed on four poles apart classes of property at dissimilar rates. These property classes consist of one, two, and three family residential property and small condominiums; property consisting of all other residential property including condominiums and cooperatives; and utility real property and all other real property, such as factories, office buildings, lofts, stores, and vacant land. Another type of tax is the general corporation tax (Budget Process). This tax is imposed on all corporations whether local or foreign. Other types of tax include personal income tax, commercial rent tax, mortgage recording tax, real property transfer tax, banking tax, sales tax, and use tax.
Both the federal and state governments impose mandates on the New York City. These mandates require expenditure; the city is thus reimbursed for such expenses either fully or partially. State grants are in connection with city welfare, education, as well as health and mental health expenditures (Budget Process). The federal grants are in connection with the Community Development, Partnership and Job Training Act.
Shortcomings
The New York budgetary process faces a few shortcomings. In the d...