News in New York – COVID Vaccine, FY23 Budget Adopted, and Admin Appointments

Mayor Adams Announces Vaccine Plan for Children

Last Friday, Mayor Eric Adams announced the COVID-19 vaccination rollout plans for babies and children. The Mayor announced that NYC will begin administering vaccines to those aged 6-months and older starting tomorrow, June 22, after receiving final federal recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Ten City Vaccine Hubs will offer the Moderna vaccine, while non-City sites will also carry the Pfizer vaccine. Parents and guardians can use New York City’s COVID-19 Vaccine Finder to schedule appointments, and the City also recommends that parents reach out to their children’s pediatricians to see if they will have the vaccine available at their office.

NYC FY23 Budget Adopted

Last Monday, the NYC Council voted to adopt the budget for Fiscal Year 2023 (FY23), which will begin on July 1, 2022. The $101.1 billion budget was approved by the Council in a 44-6 vote with 1 abstention. This was Adrienne Adam’s first budget as Speaker, as well as the first budget for many Council Members as a majority of them are in their first terms. The Speaker and the Mayor each released statements emphasizing that the budget was adopted earlier than in previous years as a result of the Council and Administration’s strong collaboration. Click here to read the Mayor’s statement and click here to read the Speaker’s press release. While it overwhelmingly passed in the Council, several progressive Council Members voiced their dissatisfaction with the budget, citing its lack of transparency, cuts to schools, and large NYPD budget. It was also reported that the six Council Members who voted no were left out of funding from the Speaker’s Initiative. You can fund the FY23 budget documents here.

Mayor Adams Announces Several Administration Appointments

Last week, Mayor Eric Adams announced several appointment to his Administration. The Mayor appointed Keith Howard as Commissioner of the Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD). Howard will be joining DYCD from the Department of Transportation, where he served as an Associate Deputy Commissioner and led NYC’s Zero Vision Initiatives. Previously, Howard worked as a Special Investigator for the Joint Commission on Integrity in the Public Schools. He will report to will report to Deputy Mayor for Strategic Initiatives Sheena Wright. Adams also nominated Rasmia Kirmani-Frye and David Gold to the City Planning Commission (CPC) and Chris Yoon to the Board of Standards and Appeals (BSA). Kirmani-Frye currently serves as the Interim Executive Director at Hester Street, an urban planning nonprofit, and Gold is a Partner at AdvisIRy Partners Group, a consulting firm providing strategic investor relations services to publicly held companies. Yoon serves an Associate at the New York office of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA). Their nominations will be sent to the NYC Council for review and approval.