We’re generally against installing independent monitors over city agencies, but the one for the city Housing Authority promises to be a positive step.
For starters, Mayor Bill de Blasio has built an all-too-solid record of letting city bureaucracies fester — most tragically at the Administration for Children’s Services, where he didn’t clean house until several children died while on ACS’ radar.
And though NYCHA chief Shola Olatoye was never as low-energy a manager as de Blasio’s first ACS head, he also hasn’t backed her up against established interests, letting unions defeat her push to get new work rules. Another sign of management trouble: The feds have seized control of the money they send to NYCHA’s capital budget.
So a monitor with the power to order management changes — and chosen jointly by the mayor, City Council Speaker Corey Johnson and the head of a NYCHA-tenants-reps group — can do some helpful shaking-up.
More important, the monitor will control $250 million authorized in the new state budget, plus $300 million in existing state funds, with the mission of selecting one or more private contractors to repair boilers and do other urgent work. (Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen pointedly listed top-priority heat and hot-water projects at 14 NYCHA developments, even as Gov. Andrew Cuomo was signing the order to establish the new monitor.)
Whatever the reason for the delay in releasing those older funds, the city’s 400,000 public-housing tenants will cheer the work actually getting done. The new grant of design-build authority should also speed things up and save money.
Note, too, the monitor isn’t simply a fresh case of the gov big-footing the mayor: Bronx state Sen. Jeff Klein and his Independent Democratic Conference have been pushing for similar NYCHA reform, including giving the City Council greater oversight of the state-chartered agency.
Then, too, Cuomo’s move gives him some stake in fixing the troubled agency: He’ll need to follow up constructively, because if NYCHA now breaks, he’ll share ownership.