This ballot question guide is part of our full explainer article on all of the six proposals on the ballot in New York City this November.
What is Ballot Question 3?
Ballot Question 3 would add additional estimates to the cost of proposed laws and updates to budget deadlines.
This is how Question 3 will appear on your ballot: “This proposal would amend the City Charter to require fiscal analysis from the Council before hearings and votes on laws, authorize fiscal analysis from the Mayor, and update budget deadlines.”
Before the City Council can vote on any legislation, they must present a Fiscal Impact Statement alongside the bill that estimates how much the proposed law could cost. As it stands now, these statements are the responsibility of the City Council, and are created by consulting with city agencies and good government groups. Staffers create the document when the bill is mostly finalized, but before the members vote on it.
A “yes” vote on Proposition 3 would change parts of this process: it would mandate that the City Council submit a Fiscal Impact Statement earlier, so that public hearings on legislation could take the cost of the law into account, and would necessitate that all statements have a budget estimate not just from City Council, but from the Office of Management and Budget — part of the executive branch, i.e. the mayor.
According to the Charter Revision Commission’s final report, the group consulted many budget experts as they considered the change. Fiscal hawks argue that this proposal doesn’t go far enough to curb spending and “address the very real problems of de facto budgeting through legislation,” president Andrew Rein of the Citizens Budget Commission told THE CITY in August.
Opponents of Prop 3 say that requiring the executive branch to submit a budget estimate before a public hearing on a bill is held will just delay lawmaking processes that already take years.
Jason Otaño, general counsel for the City Council, testified at one of the Charter Revision Commission hearings that Prop 3 would give the mayor’s office a “de facto veto” of proposed legislation, as the office could just indefinitely withhold the information needed to create a Fiscal Impact Statement. According to the Commission’s final report which collected the testimony, Otaño said that the proposal would have a “chilling effect on the exchange of ideas.”
In addition to its more controversial first provision, Prop 3 would also institute some short extensions on city budget deadlines. First, it would extend the preliminary budget deadline from January 16 to February 1 on years when a new mayor has been elected, and then shift the deadline where the Independent Budget Office reports on expenditures from February 1 to February 15. In every year, it would also extend the deadline for the executive budget to be submitted from April 26 to May 1, and then the deadline for borough presidents to make their recommendations from May 6 to May 13.
Where did this proposal come from?
Ballot questions 2 through 6 on New York City voters’ ballots this year went through a rocky process to make it your voting booth.
In the spring, the City Council put forth a ballot measure to expand the “advice and consent” process that gives the Council the power to approve some mayoral appointees.
Around the same time, Mayor Eric Adams created his own Charter Review Commission, assembling some of his closest allies to lead the process, as THE CITY has reported. His commission met for two months this summer, a timeline that has been criticized by City Council and advocacy groups as rushed.
The dueling ballot proposals caused a legal clash. According to city law, the City Council’s ballot proposals and the mayor’s can’t coexist on the same ballot, and the mayor’s takes precedence. That means only Mayor Adams’ proposed Charter revisions will appear this November.
The executive director of the mayor’s commission, Diane Savino, says that its five ballot measures were the result of listening to New Yorkers’ needs, taking input from thousands of people and that they reflect “the desires they heard from New Yorkers for clean streets, fiscal responsibility, public safety, transparency in the city’s capital planning process and support for Minority- and Women-Owned Business Enterprises,” she said in a statement.
Opponents to the mayor’s charter revisions disagree and say that though these ballot questions seem innocuous, they are actually an attempt to interfere in the city’s legislative process.
“[Propositions] two through six weaken checks and balances and weaken local democracy and increase power for the mayor at a time when people all over the country should be voting for democracy up and down the ballot,” said Joo-Hyun Kang, a representative for No Power Grab NYC, a campaign that was formed in response to the proposed Charter revisions.
“It’s a sophisticated and sneaky move by the mayor,” Kang said.
Have a question about the ballot proposals, or about voting in New York this year? Reach out to our newsroom at ask@thecity.nyc.
