Committee on Civil Service and Labor

Good morning and welcome to the New York City Council committee hearing for the Civil and— Civil Service and Labor. At this time, please put all devices on silent. Going forward, no one is to approach the dais. If you wish to testify or have any questions, please see one of the sergeant-at-arms at the back of the room or the reception desk.

Chair, you may begin. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning and welcome to today's hearing of the New York City Council's Committee on Civil Service and Labor. I'm Councilmember Shirley Aldebol, chair of this committee. Today we will be holding the second in a series of hearings about the New York City municipal workforce. Last month we held an oversight hearing on municipal recruitment and pathways into the civil service, and today we will be focusing on civil service retention strategies.

New York City's municipal workforce is the backbone of the city, and municipal workers provide vital services that keep New Yorkers safe and healthy and keep daily operations running smoothly. Yet, in the 2025 fiscal year, over 32,000 individuals departed the city's workforce, begging the question of what factors are driving attrition at such a pace. Studies and reports from the Municipal Research and Service Services Center and the National League of Cities has found that key retention strategies for municipal workforces are not so different from those in private sector.

Employees seek work-life balance, stability, career development and advancement pathways, and competitive compensation and benefits. Responses to DCAS's exit survey indicate that resignations are continuing to significantly outpace retirements, and over a quarter of resigning employees cite a lack of career advancement opportunities as this main driver for leaving. Moreover, when employees were asked to make recommendations for how to improve the employee experience, the most common requests were for increased pay, improved communication and transparency from management to staff, and to address staffing vacancies to better distribute workload.

It is also notable that 54% of respondents of the city's employee viewpoint survey indicated that they would consider taking a job elsewhere if it offered greater flexibility for remote work options. Given that city employees have shared the specific factors that not only lead them to depart but that could lead them to remain in civil service, this committee is interested to see what actions the administration plans to take to reduce attrition and and retain dedicated civil servants.

The Mamdani administration has launched several initiatives that make working for the city more attractive and more sustainable, including Little Apple Free Childcare Center for city employees and an expansion of the mayor's scholarship program for municipal workers. We were also glad to hear last week that Mayor Mamdani has formed a task force in partnership with organized labor to make recommendations to the state on how to modernize the civil service and speed up the hiring process.

As we heard last month, lengthy timelines at every step of the civil service hiring process, paired with procedures that haven't been updated in decades, frustrate civil service hiring and cost the city highly qualified potential employees who simply cannot wait around for a job. We are heartened by these endeavors and the seriousness with which this administration is taking civil service reform, and today we look forward to learning more about how we can work with this administration to ensure that the municipal workforce remains an attractive career path.

Before we begin, I'd like to thank committee staff, Senior Legislative Counsel Rie Ogasawara and Senior Policy Analyst Nina Rosenberg, for their hard work in preparing for this hearing. I'd also like to thank my Chief of Staff, Sophia Brown, and my whole District 13 team for the work that you do to serve our Bronx constituents.

At this point, I would like to recognize that we have been joined by Councilmembers Narcisse and Councilmember Hudson. Here we are. Oh, I didn't see you. You were hiding. Councilmember Murano.

So now we will hear testimony from representatives of DCAS and OLR. I now turn to committee counsel to administer the oath for this panel. Good morning. We will now hear testimony from the administration. Before we begin, I will administer the affirmation. Panelists, please raise your right hand. I will read the affirmation once, then call on each of you individually to respond.

Do you affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth before this committee, and to respond honestly to councilmember questions? Yes. Thank you.

Good morning, Chair Alderball and members of the City Council's Committee on Civil Service and Labor. My name is Katrina Porter, and I proudly serve as Deputy Commissioner and Chief Human Capital Officer at the Department of Administrative Services, more commonly known as DCAS. I'm joined today by my colleague, Kadian Otar, Assistant Commissioner for Workforce Operations at DCAS, and Dan Pollack, First Deputy Commissioner for the Office of Labor Relations.

We thank you all for inviting us to appear today and to speak on our efforts to bolster retention and support our city's workforce. At DCAS, our mission is to make city government work for all New Yorkers, and that includes ensuring that our municipal workforce knows that we are working for them too. When our city employees have access to resources that improve their quality of life, From childcare to career development and advancement, all the way through retirement planning, we are fostering an environment where staff can grow, grow their families, grow professionally, and grow even more committed to delivering for New Yorkers.

Just a few weeks into this administration, Mayor Mamdani announced the expansion of the city's first free childcare center for municipal employees. And within months, we cut the ribbon and opened the doors of the David N. Dinkins Municipal Building for the first barrel of Little Apples. The Little Apple is a testament to the city's commitment to expanding access to free childcare.

As we all know, childcare in New York City can be expensive. Through this program, the city is putting up to $20,000 back into the pockets of working municipal families. The very families we are support— who are supporting government operations each day. Part and parcel to our work to increase employee retention are our opportunities for educational and professional advancement, areas where we have been excited to expand in recent months.

In March, we expanded our Mayor's Scholarship Graduate Program and launched the city's first undergraduate support pipeline for municipal employees. This expanded initiative now connects full-time city employees with opportunities to pursue associate bachelor's, and graduate degrees. With this initiative, we are making education more attainable and affordable, supporting professional growth, and strengthening the skills of our workforce. We are also looking to build employee skills with our in-house platform, NYCityLearn, a user-friendly, comprehensive e-learning site that has expanded access to training and development resources for staff across the city.

Finally, in 2025, DCAS launched the citywide career counseling program. While some agencies may have had their own program previously, citywide guidance was issued and DCAS helped agencies to launch standardized programming. As required by Local Law 75 of 2004, agencies are designating career counselors that provide employees who request assistance either in-person or virtual sessions to help them on their career journey.

In addition to efforts to increase staff training, supporting employees' financial well-being is another important component of retaining a strong municipal workforce. One of the biggest benefits to working for the city continues to be the pension system and our robust retirement planning resources that help employees understand their benefits. Through our classes, seminars on retirement planning, pension Q&A, or or just being able to talk to their agency's HR team, the city amplifies the incredible benefits available to employees.

These classes and seminars complement a broader range of city benefits, from retirement savings plans, pre-tax commuter benefits, and flexible spending accounts for health— for eligible health and dependent care expenses, to public service loan forgiveness that helps employees manage everyday costs and plan for the future. With a workforce as vast as ours, building a culture across dozens of agencies can look very differently.

Our priority remains cultivating a citywide culture built on the principles of equity, inclusion, accessibility, respect, and excellence. As part of the activation of Local Law 76 of 2004— 2024, excuse me. DCAS launched the first-ever citywide employee viewpoint survey. This first-of-its-kind effort was modeled after the federal government's similarly named survey and provides the city with important insights into employee sentiments around a variety of topics.

With over 16,000 employees taking the voluntary survey, DCAS was able to learn about employee viewpoints around their work, management, work-life balance, modernization, and retention efforts. It was heartening to learn that the majority of employees who took the survey Nearly 78% feel respected in their workplace. As we continue to foster a culture of inclusion and transparency, DCAS has also launched exit surveys and interviews.

Now in its second year, the fiscal year '25 report shows that employees overall have positive experiences in their workplace. 11 out of the 14 categories received mostly positive ratings, indicating that employees felt positive about their overall work experience. The top 5 categories were related to work environment, teamwork and collaboration, leadership and supervision, communication, and equity and inclusion.

While today's hearing is concentrated on retention strategies, it is important to highlight the strides we are making in recruitment. Just last week, we announced alongside Mayor Mamdani that we are launching the first-of-its-kind partnership with organized labor to speed up and modernize hiring for city jobs. The Civil Service Modernization Advisory Committee is actively working to develop in-house solutions and legislative fixes to improve the city's hiring system.

This is in addition to the administration's progress in connecting New Yorkers with job opportunities, including removing financial barriers and making civil service exams free for New York City high school students and first-time test takers. Moreover, this past August, DCAS doubled the Civil Service Pathway Fellowship, expanding a direct pathway from college to city government careers for 400 New Yorkers.

And just last month, the mayor, alongside New York City Small Business Services and DCAS, opened the Jobs NYC Center, a walk-in hub connecting New Yorkers to good-paying jobs in public service. We are utilizing all the tools available to position the City of New York as an employer of choice. When looking at the data, we see that the City of New York is competitive with the private sector when it comes to filling vacancies with talented New Yorkers, and our retention rate, 85%, is similar to other large public sector employers like New York State and the federal government, both at 85%.

However, the data does not show the full picture of retention in municipal employment. If you want to measure the success of retention, A good indicator is the median tenure of employees. This can provide a more accurate picture of the city's retention efforts and success. DCAS data shows that compared to the 3-year average time an employee stays in a private sector position, a city employee serves nearly 3 times as long, or about 9 years.

In fact, 3 quarters of the workforce has served for 5 years or more. Moreover, the city's vacancy rate overall is low, approximately 3.8%, down from a high of 8.4% in November of 2021. It is a reassuring sign that we continue to see very high rates for both retention and tenure. We all know that retaining a strong, engaged, and diverse workforce is essential to delivering the services New Yorkers rely on every day.

We are driven by our commitment to strengthen the entire employee experience, from expanding access to government jobs to creating opportunities for growth development, and advancement. By investing in our people and building a workplace where employees can see a future for themselves, we can assure that talented New Yorkers not only choose city government but trust that they can build a meaningful and lasting career here.

Thank you for your time and attention, and we're happy to answer any questions you may have.

And then— I'm sorry, before we go go for questions. Dan is also going to read. Yes, thank you. Good morning, Chair Alderball and members of the Civil Service and Labor Committee. My name is Daniel Pollack. I'm the First Deputy Commissioner at the Mayor's Office of Labor Relations. I'm joined today by my colleague Zach Leither, Associate Commissioner at OLR.

I'm down over a bit of a cold, so I ask that you would bear with me. Um, today I will outline our efforts to improve recruitment retention within the city workforce through the collective bargaining process. In the last round of bargaining, when we were coming out of the COVID pandemic and the nationwide recruitment retention challenges, often referred to as the Great Resignation, recruitment retention were really at the forefront of our focus.

We delivered the most significant wage increases in more than a decade, totaling over 16% over 5 years for city workers. Agreements also included our flexible work pilot, which was recently extended through June of 2027. And we also used a concept that we called equity funding to target specific titles with particularly concerning recruitment retention challenges. This equity funding was used for things such as increasing pay for entry-level roles, eliminating early steps in graduated pay plans, thereby accelerating employee advancement to higher steps, and retention bonuses.

Specifically, This funding facilitated, among many other things, permanent lifeguard and 911 operator wage increases, short-term recruitment retention bonuses for DSS caseworkers, accelerated top pay schedules for special officers and school safety agents, and a new salary structure for probation officers. With many of our labor contracts expired or expiring in the coming months and year, we know we have a lot more work to do on this front, and dealing with recruitment and retention issues is one of our top priorities as we approach a new round of bargaining.

Beyond wage increases, we always lean heavily on the quality of our benefits to drive up retention rates and keep talented professionals in city service. Our office, OLR, administers a robust employee benefit program for city employees. It includes the health benefit program, deferred compensation plan, flexible spending account programs, which includes both health and dependent care accounts, New York City employee individual retirement accounts, and the management benefits fund for non-union employees.

Unionized employees also enjoy access to union welfare funds for supplemental benefits like drugs, vision, and dental. Many unions offer additional benefits through other funds such as child care, legal representation, and annuity, all of which are funded by city contributions. We are always striving to improve our benefits, especially our health benefits, most notably with the launch of the NYSPPO health plan earlier this year.

That plan retains the premium-free, high-quality insurance our employees have enjoyed while providing significant improvements. Those improvements include an expanded network for those employees and retirees living out of state, an increased reimbursement schedule for out-of-network providers, and a wider behavioral health network. In addition to the Employee Benefits Program, we have programs like WorkWell NYC, the city's workplace wellness program, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, and our Employee Assistance Program.

We provide physical, mental, and emotional health support services that foster a resilient and supported workforce. We're investing directly in the daily well-being and work-life balance of our employees through these efforts. These programs provide comprehensive safety net and financial wellness tools that set the city service apart. They're vital in attracting prospective candidates and giving current employees compelling reasons to build long-term careers with the city.

You know, one thing I'll mention is that we are always looking to improve the way we communicate out about our benefits. It's something we know we have more work on, and we will continue to make efforts to better communicate the value of our benefits to prospective employees, current employees, really everyone. As we look ahead and with many of our collective bargaining agreements expiring in the coming year, recruitment and retention, as I mentioned, will remain a central critical point of discussion during the next round of bargaining.

We look forward to discussing these issues with our labor unions across the bargaining table. Thank you for the opportunity to testify, and I'm happy to take any questions.

Thank you for your testimony today. I'm going to I'm going to turn it over to Councilmember Hudson. She has to leave. She has a question. Thank you so much, Chair. Just a quick question for you, Deputy Commissioner Porter, about the survey, the voluntary employee survey. You said 16,000 employees took the survey. Out of how many total, or do you know what percentage?

So the survey was released to all New York City employees. We marketed the survey through agency personnel offices. I believe we went direct to the employee as well to provide them with the link and an opportunity to take the survey, and that was the population that actually responded. Do you know what percentage of the total workforce the 16,000 employees are?

Oh, that's a good That's a good question. Let's see if we have that. And I guess while you do that, I'm also curious to know what efforts you're taking to get more participation in that survey. So the survey is on a 2-year a 2-year cadence. So we look at this as like the benchmark survey. And so the next time that we have to administer the survey, we will, you know, try to do more marketing and get folks more excited about sharing their experience with us.

But that should be in '27, right? The next survey? Yeah. And are there— do you have a goal for how much participation you would like to see? If this is the benchmark? So we're currently figuring out that statistics, and one of the things that we're looking at is the timeline that we release the survey. This is a survey that also goes out to our— the Department of Education.

And so within the law, we were required to release it by September. We made some adjustments to make sure that we're able to get the teachers in, and so we're looking at the timeline, if there's an earlier timeline that we can issue the survey. that would allow us to have more opportunity to market it and to reach the entire population.

And so we're developing our strategies and thinking about that now, although the survey is not due until next year before September. Thank you. And Councilmember, we can follow up with you on that percentage. We don't have that available. Okay. What are the total number of city employees that would make up the entire universe? So the total number of employees police.

Um, so I'll just pull that for you right now. Mhm. No, sorry, just got a couple of different reports. Um, so the survey was issued in 2025. The total number of employees that we have is 370,000. 370,000? Yes, 370,000 employees. And so the point in time may be slightly different in terms of the number of employee folks that were employed with the city at the time that the survey was released versus I'm looking at our tentative workforce profile report for fiscal year 2025.

So the numbers may be a little bit different. little bit different, and so based on that, we will see that the respondents would be roughly— It's like 4.3%? Exactly, around 23-25%. So we'll definitely be able to get back to you in terms of an exact number. We'll be able to look in our system to determine how many individuals received the survey and then how many people responded to it.

Okay, thank you. Thanks, Chair. So the length of time that an employee has been in an agency, you said, is how long before they depart? The length of time for employees, the average length of time is about 9 years. 9 years. Do you have a breakdown by agency? In terms of the average length of service? So, with our Workforce Profile Report that looks at the city's workforce as a whole, we're able to share the larger number, and then agencies have the opportunity to go in and do a more deeper dive into what their agency population looks like, the title, demographics.

So, there's an opportunity to go a little bit deeper. If you have a specific agency or specific title that we're looking into, that's information that we can gather. from an app application that we have that allows for that deeper dive. Yeah, I think what I'm interested in is for those agencies that have a larger vacancy rate or higher turnover rate, if the— you know, if people responded to the survey on those agencies, and if you have, you know, an average length of service for those agencies that seem to be having difficulty retaining people and recruiting people?

Yeah, and so, the survey responses may be different across the board. One of the things that we encourage is that all agencies share it with the departing employees. There are agencies, and there are employees that have more responses versus others, but we don't right now have a direct correlation between the agencies with the highest retention rate and are they responding to the survey.

That's information that we can definitely get back to you on. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate that. And do you see specific milestones after which employees are more likely to leave? For example, are there trends that show that there's a spike in departures as soon as an employee has been at the agency for 3 years, 5 years? You said, you know, 9 years is the average.

And do you have any idea what factors could drive those— drive those spikes or those periods of time when an employee decides, I've been here 5 years, I'm out? So across the board, we're seeing that most employees are leaving— for the employees that are departing, it's between 0 to 4 years. And we're seeing the reasons could be different.

If we look at the survey response responses. Most of them either cited career development, larger than that, maybe looking at salary and benefits or work-life balance. And so what that told us is overall, most people really do enjoy working for the City and want to work for the City. The fact that career development is one of the things that pops up lets us know that there is kind of an information challenge that's there because the City, as you know, with our competitive titles, we have different pathways.

There are different programs and opportunities for an employee, even if they're not interested in staying in their specific agency, there's an opportunity for them to move across other agencies, maintain their benefits and, you know, time off and all of those things that goes with a city employee. And so, what we've been doing is really looking at ways that we can engage employees to share information about those pathways and about those benefits.

And so, we have developed an information initiative where we're connecting with employees at different levels to share information about the programs that we have. I'm going to— I'm going to pause. Oh, they left. Never mind.

Can you describe how DCAS undertakes long-term workforce planning for agencies? How far out do you and agency heads anticipate vacancies in a supervisory position? Are there calculations that you make to try to ensure that as far as is practicable, institutional knowledge can be passed on to successors before an employee departs? Okay. So, the foundation of the workforce continues to be through examinations.

And so, we partner with agencies at the beginning of each year and ahead of the incoming fiscal year. to understand their immediate and future hiring needs to ensure that we're offering examinations to support their hiring. So it starts out with a— it's a data-driven approach. We look at, you know, active exams and, like, other workforce data to determine a tentative list of titles that we plan to offer examinations for.

And then we provide that information to city agencies. in addition to what we call a workforce planning questionnaire, for them to communicate any, you know, changes or additions that should be added to the schedule. And it's an iterative process. It goes on for, you know, almost 5 months. And then, you know, we work with them to finalize the annual schedule.

In addition to that, if they have, like, immediate hiring needs, or if they see that they have titles where they may see high attrition and they need to hire up, then we take a more targeted approach through, you know, specialized hiring events or amplifying their immediate hiring needs through our Office of Citywide Recruitment. Yeah, I'm just thinking— I guess I'm thinking of it differently in terms of your existing workforce and whether— and this may be something that each city agency needs to think about.

But just passing on institutional knowledge to a newer workforce. I was a caseworker at the City of New York. I had a great supervisor. There are things that you learn on the job that you don't get in an exam or, you know, the training that the city gives. And there are people that have institutional knowledge about how their particular agency works or how to do the job, how to manage your workload, that is often not passed on to, you know, the next generation of employees.

I'm wondering if there is any thought to creating a community of people an infrastructure in these agencies so that people who are, you know, either have a lot of experience can pass on that knowledge to newer employees beyond the supervisory structure that may exist? So, I think that's a great question, and you're right, a lot of that does happen at the agency level.

What I can share here is my experience at DCAS. in, you know, our succession plan— planning that happens where we develop policies and procedures and ensure that, you know, that information is shared broadly across, you know, the line of service or the department. But I'm sure that at other agencies they do have succession planning programs in place.

It's just not like at a citywide level. We don't manage that process. Thank you.

What is the price range of the training courses? The New York City Learn website advertises several free courses, but we also saw some more intensive training courses that cost as much as $1,900. Do the employing agencies foot the bill for these courses? Are there any courses that are paid out of pocket by Participating employees or their unions that you know of?

I don't know if OLR can answer that or— So, our trainings, the cost of it can range anywhere from $150 to, as you said, on the higher end, if it's like a certificate program like Six Sigma. The good thing is that this cost is not to the employee. It is to the agency, and so any employee that participates in our program are not paying out of pocket. pocket for those trainings.

Okay. And I'll just— sorry, go ahead. Sorry. And I'll just add that it's a fee-for-services model, so the city does not, you know, benefit from providing training. The cost is tied to the vendors that we utilize to perform the trainings. Okay. And to add to that, from the bargaining perspective, we do have some contracts that have reimbursement for training.

We also have some unions that have training funds that the city contributes into that have their own training programs. Does DCAS have access to information about the number of workers who submit requests for trainings and the number of workers whose requests are granted? We can get back to you on the number of folks that have requested trainings, but for the number of people that have participated in trainings for individual Users, we've seen that number has been increasing across the last 3 years.

We started out with about 13,000 that were engaging in training, and with some of the promotions that we've been doing in the newer system, that number has risen up to over 20,000 employees that are participating in training. And what's your outreach to workers so that they know that this is available to them at no cost, no out-of-pocket costs, right?

Because if you— if I look at the website and I see $1,900, I'm likely to say, I can't afford that. that, I'm not going to take a training class. Yes, and that is something that the team is very aggressive about. We have— and, you know, based on the survey, we have seen that folks are not familiar with the information that's there.

So, one, we reach out to the agency personnel officers. We communicate with the training liaisons. We have now developed training sessions specifically for NYC D-Learn where we are reaching out to all of our contacts at the agencies, all of the employees who have engaged with us in any kind of professional development training to let them know directly that we're having this session.

We walk them through what they can get at NYC Learn, how they can go through and apply. We also let them know that the courses are free. We also include that information in when somebody go in to apply. We include that language that it's at no cost to the employees. And we also created a flyer that the agencies can share or place up with their employees.

So we noticed that as we were doing these sessions, a lot of employees were asking, you know, what's the fee to them? And so we're consistently and constantly thinking about different different ways that we can let them know that there's no cost to you, you should be engaged with this. And we've seen that in the numbers of folks, more people that are registering for and taking the trainings.

Have you seen an increase in the number of employees taking trainings due to your outreach? What have been your metrics in terms of— Yeah, so that's what I previously cited, where back about 3 years ago, we started at about 13,000 individual test takers, and now we're I'm sorry, folks that are taking our training. So now, we have about 20,000 people that are taking our training.

So we have seen a steady increase in that. What we're also seeing is that the classrooms are filled and more people are asking for training. So we're going back and including more classes to satisfy the needs of the, you know, employees. And what are— what category of courses are see the highest enrollment or the highest demand? So, it varies.

We may see a course like Excel, we have project management, or our leadership courses are also well attended. And so, what we do if we see that there are courses where there may not be a lot of attention, we do direct outreach to certain populations to make sure that there's more engagement within those trainings. And so, we try to make sure that we have a wide array of trainings available.

And do these trainings or some of these trainings lead to promotional opportunities? That information would be at the agency level, so we're not able to share that. And does DCAS track data on which agencies have the highest participation in a specific type of training curriculum? We are not that granular with the data. We can and we are planning to look at how we can further engage agencies where we see lower participation.

So one of the things that we do is we meet with the training liaisons now on a bimonthly basis, and we try to highlight, you know, the trainings that are available to them, encourage them to share that information with their employees, and we're looking at how we can reach directly to agencies where we see little or no engagement with our training.

That's definitely a part of our plan going forward. Do you know if the agencies are actually tracking that data to see if employees who participated in training programs are able to move into higher-paying positions? Other agencies may have other retention and employee management goals, so they may track that. We work with a lot of agencies who offer agency-specific training, so they may have internal processes to track that, but I can't say for 100% sure which agencies.

Okay.

I see you rejoined us. I was going to call on you and you were gone. Councilman, I'm going to pause so Councilmember Murano can ask questions. Thank you, Chair. Again, I'm still not used to a chair not going on for 45 minutes before giving other members a chance to ask a question. It's a tribute to your respect for your colleagues that you make an effort to include us.

Thank you all for your testimony. Deputy Commissioner Porter, I was struck by something in your testimony. You point to an 85% employee retention rate and a vacancy rate of just 3.8%, and you describe these as reassuring signs. But the committee's report says more than 32,000 city employees left municipal service in fiscal year 2025, with resignations significantly outpacing retirement.

So here's, here's my question. Is an 85% retention rate something we should be celebrating, or does it mean we're losing roughly 1 out of every 7 employees in a given year? And when you cite that 3.8% vacancy rate, does that figure account for positions that agencies have eliminated, frozen, or simply decided not to fill? Because you can make a vacancy rate look pretty good if you eliminate enough vacancies.

That doesn't necessarily mean you've got enough people to do the work. To your first question, 85%, I don't know that we need to celebrate it, but I think that it is a good step in the right direction, and it is an indicator that city employees are remaining in their jobs. comparable to other large municipalities and even the federal government.

So I just, you know, we wanted to highlight it as a comparison. Of course, there's always more work to do, and, you know, just based on some of the programs and projects that have been recently implemented and initiated, I think that is a, you know, good example of the city's commitment to ensure that we are retaining and attracting top talent and putting New York City in a position to be an employer of choice.

As it relates to the vacancy rate, we use the data that, you know, was available to us. The idea of the state of affairs, if a position was, you know, eliminated or, you know, repurposed, that's not something that, you know, I'm able to speak to. But once again, it does appear to be a good You know, an advancement from the heights of the vacancy crisis in 2021.

And, you know, as we discussed the last time that we were here, it is also something that the city is committed to do, like figure out ways to attract top talent and to shorten the timeline, you know, to get butts in the seat to ensure that city agencies have the support that they need to, you know, provide service to Your testimony also talks extensively about management training, leadership development, and improving workplace culture, and I think those things are all great.

But I have a more fundamental question. Does the city evaluate agency commissioners and senior managers based on their employee retention rates? If an agency is consistently losing experienced employees at a rate much higher than comparable agencies. Is that reflected in the commissioner's performance evaluation? I guess the question I'm asking is, is anybody held accountable? Because in the private sector, if a manager keeps losing good employees, eventually someone starts asking questions about the manager.

Is city government doing the same thing? So that's not something that I'm, you know, able to speak to here. What I can say is that DCAS, the agency, we're committed to supporting agencies in meeting their hiring needs through examinations, through professional development, and in any way that we can, especially if an agency comes to us with a problem, a workforce problem.

You know, we're here to help them strategize and develop, you know, programs and opportunities to address their needs. Do you think DCAS would support publishing retention rates for every agency and requiring agencies with unusually high turnover to develop corrective action plans? So I think it's something that we can consider. You know, I wouldn't say here one way or another, but, you know, we would be open to the discussion.

Lastly, as a father of 2, the points that you raised about childcare really resonated with me. You spoke proudly about the new Little Apple Child Care Center, but the city's new program has just 40 slots, all in a building in Lower Manhattan. How many municipal employees have children who could potentially qualify for these 40 slots? And how does this program help a sanitation worker in Staten Island, or a correction officer working overnight, or somebody whose job requires them to be in Queens?

at 6 o'clock in the morning. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm glad we're helping these 40 families, but I don't want us congratulating ourselves for creating a benefit that's inaccessible to the overwhelming majority of municipal workers. Yes, point taken, right? However, this is a pilot program, and it is a step in the right direction to develop programs and opportunities for— that, you know, will benefit city employees.

The goal here was to develop a framework that could potentially be expanded, but right now we're in the middle of the pilot, and, you know, we're more than happy to follow up and share with you, you know, any positive or not so positive outcomes from the pilot program. Thank you. You're welcome. You must have a very long waiting list for that pilot.

So I— what are your targets for training? Do you have any targets or goals for training? The MMR cites a target of 10,377 participants for both FY26 and '27. The target is— Much lower than the actual FY26 participation rate. Have you adjusted those targets, and what are they? So I can speak a little bit about our goals towards training, but before I do, I just wanted to make a correction from the earlier question about the SAVs and the response rate. and the number of individuals that were issued the survey.

So the survey did not include DOE or H&H, which is included in our 370,000 numbers. They issue— they have their own survey that they do. And so it was sent to 169,000 employees, and of that, 10% responded. Okay. So I just wanted to correct that. In terms of our training goals, we are— one of the things that We do within the Learning and Development Unit is, A, we're looking to see how can we make the training more accessible to individuals, how can we collect feedback on what trainings, what they're seeing, what's working for them, what's not, and then looking at ways that we can engage other, other sort of trainings where there's a gap.

So right now we're in the process of identifying additional vendors that we can use to provide more trainings to individuals. So For the fall— for the spring catalogue that's coming up, we're looking at how we can create better pathways into training so individuals who are— maybe they're interested in taking on going into, let's say, HR path or an IT path, they'll have an idea in terms of what kinds of training they'll need to take in order to get there.

So we're really looking at— yes, we always want to increase. We always want to make sure that we have, you know, enough people that are aware of the trainings and are taking part. part in that, but we're also looking at the diversity of the training, the flexibility of the training. Are we offering virtual trainings, in-person trainings? We're also looking into trainings where folks can be— it's more asynchronous, so they are not necessarily tied to a 9 to 5 while being at the center for a 9 to 5.

And do you also get feedback from the individual agencies as to what needs they have? in terms of, you know, a trained workforce that they need to promote within or move into certain positions? Yes. So, one of the things that I did when we— I came into the role was do listening sessions with our vendors, with our agency partners, as well as the city employees, and kind of take into consideration what they were seeing and what they weren't seeing.

And so, that has helped us to develop the additional trainings that we're add into our catalogue. Agencies also work with us to do agency-specific training, so that gives us a sense of where they're looking to train their employees. Most of them are focused on, you know, some of them have supervisory training. For the first part, they have a group of trainers that all supervisors must take, and so we work with individual agencies based on what their needs are, whether they're looking to train only their employees or having more access to training on our— to different trainings on the platform.

Thank you.

On your promotional exams, the examination schedules published on DCAS's website show both promotional exams and open competitive exams that are scheduled for the upcoming fiscal year. How do the conversations surrounding an agency's promotional needs differ from the considerations you need to make when scheduling open competitive examinations? And what are the main factors that will weigh on the decision to schedule a promotional exam?

Thank you for that. So, like, just going back to what I had described earlier about the collaborative effort, you know, the data-driven approach that we take to the exam schedule, when we're engaging in that process, we look at employees who would be eligible for promotion in a certain title. You know, you have to have, like, the permanent underlying title to be eligible to take a promotional exam, and so we let that data kind of drive which exams we offer.

So, if we see an uptick in folks being made eligible for a specific title, then we would ensure that promotion exam is on the examination schedule for that title. Are there ever situations where promotional exams are scheduled on an emergency basis? We do have flexibility to add exams to the schedule throughout the cycle. Given what we know about how OMB plays a significant role in budgeting headcount for agencies and how their process impacts the timeline for new hires, how does their process for budgeting headcount influence your decisions surrounding promotional exams?

It does not, because the exam schedule is a preemptive measure. So if we're giving exams during fiscal year '27, those exams won't be ready for use until 6 to 9 months after they're administered. So we don't allow that to weigh in on the titles that we add to the schedule. It's a forward look. Yeah.

I'm going to pause. Councilmember Felice has joined us on Zoom. Do you have any questions, Councilmember? He just logged off. Oh, he logged off. Never mind. I recognized him too late. Okay. So I can keep on going.

Pursuant to Local Law 130 of 2023, DCAS was tasked with creating and distributing a comprehensive exit survey, which you spoke about, an interview protocol for departing city employees to understand the main impetus for people leaving the municipal workforce. In the most recent report reflecting survey results, a little over 32,000 employees left the city workforce, and of the departing employees who completed the surveys, compensation, benefits, work-life balance, and growth and development were the main areas that were rated most negatively and were areas that were recommended for improvement?

Given the limitations on adjusting compensation and benefits, are there adjustments that can be made to organizational structures within agencies to increase the number of levels in the career ladder and to provide additional opportunities for promotion? I'll take that one. Thank you, Councilmember. So as far as agency organizational structures, I think that would be the kind of prerogative of each agency.

Certainly, you know, to the extent OLR is involved in conversations with agencies about issues they're having, it's something we would often explore with them. There's also, you know, my colleagues at DCAS can speak to, sometimes level assignment levels can be added to a job specification to kind of facilitate advancement within the title. Those are a couple options.

But in terms of changes to the organizational structure to kind of create more levels and more advancement, that's something that would happen at the agency level. When looking at the data from the exit surveys, and 80%— 80% were resignations, 13.5% were retirement, and 5.5% were transfers to other city agencies, Have you identified any particular trends where employees from one agency are likely to transfer to another because the skills necessary are similar and there may be more opportunities for career development at the destination agency?

So, I think it's common for employees to move around city government just based on the vast number of opportunities that may be available. So, it will be difficult to kind of, like, hone in on a specific reason. I think it's just more about, you know, the number of positions and opportunities that are available across the 80-plus agencies with available vacancies.

So, in the— The survey, again, the most recent results of the survey, it revealed that a large number of city employees, 35%, found work-life balance to be skewed and reported feeling emotionally drained. Are there any initiatives that DCAS can implement or has implemented or can recommend to agencies to implement to improve work-life balance? So, I think work-life balance can show up in different ways across different titles.

One of the things that— and Orlora may be able to speak to this— is the WorkWell program that provides a lot of different trainings and activities that individuals and agencies can participate in, in terms of how to really engage their employees. I know internally within our agencies, our agency provides a lot of opportunities for us to kind of decompress.

We have a meditation room. So agencies do a lot of different things based on the needs of their workforce. And then there are citywide programs that OLR can speak about in terms of WorkWell. Yes, thank you. Thank you for that question, Chair Alderman. So, yeah, I would highlight WorkWell. So far this year, WorkWell has reached over 60,000 participants for its programming.

So, you know, we launched that program 10 years ago for this reason. We know that addressing employee wellness, you know, there's more than just wages and traditional benefits. Addressing wellness through fitness classes, through counseling, through things like that is so important. I'd also highlight the Employee Assistance Program, which has been around longer but is a vital resource for employees. employees and agencies when employees are facing challenges.

It's available for employees. It's available for their families. And there's a lot of value there in both dealing with short-term issues. So, someone who's experiencing kind of mental health issues or burnout or something can have a very kind of immediate appointment with a licensed clinical social worker. But we also work hard to connect people with providers that take our insurance.

So one of the most valuable parts of EAP is they have relationships with our insurance providers, with our— with a lot of healthcare providers out there. And I know it's often hard for people to find appointments for mental health that take insurance. EAP is a great resource there for employees to go. They'll get set up with someone who is accepting new patients, who is taking our insurance.

And that can help with some of the mental health challenges employees face. Do you know if managers, supervisors are, I guess, trained to talk to their employees about these programs? You know, I know that if we've had an especially tough week, you know, I remind my staff that these programs are available, you know, and, you know, it's almost a constant reminder because people will just keep plowing along and not think about it.

So I'm just wondering if that's something that you've incorporated or if you know that the agencies have incorporated that in their, you know, kind of like training, supervisory training to you know, remind people that these are available to them? Yeah, I can just speak initially and then turn to my DTAS colleagues. So, you know, we work very closely with DTAS to provide information and work with them to get information out to agencies about these programs.

As I mentioned in my testimony, I think we have at OLR identified that this is an area where we can improve communicating about our benefits. It's a hard city, a lot of employees, and we think there are a lot of people who probably don't have knowledge of what we offer, and we can do better. So, you know, I'll tout that we all are— newly this— excuse me— newly this year has a communications division.

We never had a communications division before. And one of— something that is very important is communicating these benefits out to our employees. So, it's a priority for us. We're going to keep working at it. And I can let my DTAF colleagues speak to some of their roles. We also offer a lot of trainings around managing stress, emotional intelligence, as a part of our training catalogues, and we do— those are some of the classes that we always see a lot of folks that are engaged in.

So, each year, we try to make sure that we have different courses that can just address the employees' well-being as a part of our training catalogue. And I would also add that, in general, managers or supervisors may refer their employees to the agency's HR department who are trained and knowledgeable about the programs that may be available to employees who may need, you know, outside support.

Yeah, 'cause 16— the— does that include the DOE and other employees, or is it just the 161? What was it, 160-something employees? So, EAP serves the Department of Education and Health and Hospitals. Some of the uniformed agencies have their own EAP programs, but our EAP program will never turn anyone away. So, but it does serve DOE and Health and Hospitals and NITRA as well.

WorkWell will also participate with every agency. Yeah. So, we do have a lot of work to do. You know, it's 370,000 employees, including H&H and DOE, and 16,000 have availed themselves. Oh, I apologize. The report was 60,000, said zero. Oh, 60,000. Yeah, 60,000. 60,000, I thought you said 16,000. But still— That's a better number. Right. Better number.

But still, the point stands. We're always looking for ways to expand and to reach more people. Um, and we certainly welcome the council's thoughts and partnership, um, in any ideas you may have. But it's, it's a constant effort. Like I said, it's, it's not different types of employees you have to reach in different ways, and it's something we're always working through.

Thank you, I appreciate that.

Um, So as we talked about work-life balance and remote work, is it the agency heads who decide whether a title is subject to hybrid or flexible work, or do these policy choices come from the mayor's office? Thank you for that question. Pursuant to our agreement with DC 37 and other unions, agency decides about, you know, the degree of remote work and who is eligible.

Okay.

And as part of the city's mission to reduce pay disparities within the municipal workforce, the council passed several pieces of legislation requiring the administration to undergo a pay equity analysis. One such law, Local Law 27 of 2023, required DCAS to contract with a vendor to undertake a comparative worth analysis of city titles with the goal of ensuring that employees across the municipal workforce who perform substantially similar tasks are paid similarly.

Has the vendor provided any updates to you about their findings, and do you have a general understanding of the timeline for the completion of this analysis? Thank you for that question. So yes, back in 2025, the city signed into a contract with Elicit Contracting to conduct that analysis, and work is currently underway. We're in the phase where the consultant will begin desk audits at the agency level, and we're confident that— and we're on track to ensure that that first report to the City Council will be on time, which is May 7th.

So we're— the first report is due to the City Council on May 7th, and we're confident that we'll get it done by then. So after the results of this comparative worth analysis are published, are you open to completing a minimum qualifications review of the titles that the analysis identifies As being substantially similar in work responsibilities but which may have different eligibility requirements.

So as a part of that report, they will come with a set of recommendations and of course a dialogue with the City Council on those recommendations. So we're open to, you know, any thoughts or ideas you may have on that.

So we already talked about the childcare facility, 40 slots. You must have a very long waiting list. It's actually 37 families waiting on the waitlist. 37 families waiting. Okay. How many staff are employed at the Little Apple Child Care Center? There are 4 classrooms in the facility, and what are their titles and roles? So the Little Apple is actually managed by a vendor.

So no city employees work at the center. Okay. Okay.

Pursuant to Local Law 130 of 2023, DCAS has administered exit surveys. Many cited personal reasons as their rationale for leaving civil service. In the survey, are respondents that cite personal reasons as their reason for leaving, are they able to elaborate on the specific reason on the survey? If so, does— do parenting responsibilities come up frequently, and how does that factor into your decision to— The survey as it exists does not ask about— for them to really go into what those personal reasons are.

So it's currently not being used to influence the childcare process. I know there was a separate evaluation survey process that was issued to employees to determine the need for childcare. needs of the service. And so before the center was created, there was a lot of engagement with employees to determine what their needs were. Okay. Thank you.

So the Jobs New York City office, I was there for the opening. Very exciting. That has begun operations, and we saw over 2,400 applicants who dropped by in search of a job on opening day. It's our understanding that the office focuses heavily on recruitment, which was our last hearing topic, but could you give us an overview of the services offered at this office, especially any programs that are dedicated to helping current city employees develop professional skills or move upward in the municipal workforce?

And could you describe how DCAS and SBS divide the responsibilities of running this office? Okay. So, the Jobs NYC Center is managed by SBS, and DCAS plays a mostly supporting role. So, we're there to ensure that we can provide potential prospective job applicants with information about the civil service process, about examinations and jobs, but mostly the center is managed by SBS, and the model that they have in line is similar to that of their Workforce One Center.

So they provide career services, they have workshops and trainings that are available, and employer services, job readiness opportunities. And then in addition to that, they'll be working directly with city agencies to host hiring halls and agency spotlight events. But we're playing mostly a support role. And what— what does that mean when you say supportive role? Supportive role, you know, we're the experts in the civil service system.

We manage the examination process, so we want to have a footprint there to ensure that folks who are visiting can, you know, have answers to their questions. Is it— are people able to go upstairs and take an exam if they're qualified to do so? Not on the spot, but they could— We do have a CTAC, a computerized testing center, in that building, so they could go upstairs, you know, for more information, but the goal is to have someone in the job center so that they don't have to, you know, do the back and forth.

Mm-hmm. They can apply for exams at the job center. We have set up exam kiosks where they can learn more about exams that are opening for filing and actually, you know, visit our websites and apply for exams online.

So on October 5th, the mayor convened a civil service modernization advisory committee comprised of city government and labor leaders with the goal that the committee identify reform measures that the city and the state can implement to improve the hiring process. Can you tell us whether the committee has convened yet and what the discussions have looked like so far and whether you think there is any legislation at the city level that would help further the goals of the task force?

So thank you for that. The committee has convened. So far we've had 2 meetings and conversations are ongoing about recommendations that we want to put forth by the end of the year. My understanding is that, you know, we're more than open to meet with you separately to, you know, brief you and go more into detail. about, you know, our vision for the committee.

But things are moving along. And you have until the end of the year to— The goal is to have recommendations set by the end of the year. Okay. That's a quick timeline. Yes. I mean, so far we've met multiple times. You know, there are working groups that are fully committed to, you know, getting this right. So— and things are moving very quickly, but we're, you know, we're up for Yeah, I would really appreciate— I think myself and probably other members of the committee would appreciate a briefing so that we can figure out ways that we can legislatively move some of these processes along at the city level.

I know a lot of it has to go to the— some of it has to go to the state for— those recommendations have to go to the state. But I think it would be helpful to I think there are ways that City Council can be helpful to implement certain programs or changes in recruitment or workforce development. So, yeah, I look forward to that.

Thank you.

So the mayor's— I want to get into the mayor's scholarship program, and then I'll pause and see if Councilmember Narcisse has any questions. In March of 2026, the mayor and DCAS announced the mayor's scholarship program, which you spoke to in your testimony, expanded— which expanded the existing mayor's graduate scholarship program to include undergraduate degree programs. How many city employees have enrolled for scholarships?

for the undergraduate degree program since this announcement was made? So I do want to clarify the process for the scholarships. So one of the things that we do is we work with different schools who determine the scholarship amount that they would want to offer for individual applicants. And so for the main scholarship program that we released, we had about 90 individuals from across, I think, about 21 agencies that submitted an application to the schools, and then we're collecting the data on how many individuals received a scholarship award and the amount that they received.

And what agencies are most commonly represented by employees who seek scholarships? I would have to get back to you on that. see you on that date. Um, and since the cohort opened in, uh, 2026, how many, um, how many applications have you received? So, for the 2026 cohort, that is for the Management Academy— um, I'm sorry, too many programs— for the, uh, graduate program, and they have until November to submit the applications, so we don't have that data available right now.

And are there any discussions to expand partnerships with other academic institutions to offer a scholarship program? Yes. One of the things that we're doing with both the graduate and undergraduate programs is to do extensive outreach to some of the schools that are not already participating. And so we— the team does, you know, cold calls to reach out to different schools to really give them an overview.

We do information sessions to give an overview of the opportunity that's available. And then once we have a selection of schools, we are— we do what we call our school resource fairs so that way students can— employees can get a little bit more familiar with the programming that are available at the different schools. So, we try to make sure that there's a connection between the schools and the employees before application period closes.

So SUNY Reconnect and CUNY Reconnect programs provide funding to cover the full cost of tuition, fees, books, and supplies for people aged 25 to 55 seeking to obtain a degree. Is getting an expansion— is getting an expansion in 2026 2027. It's getting an expansion in 2027. The Reconnect programs will now be offered to individuals who enroll for a degree in a high-demand field who already held a prior degree in a different field.

Are you in communication with the state for what career fields will be deemed high demand, and do those career fields correspond to the agencies that have persistent vacancy or attrition issues? So, we haven't had that level of conversation with CUNY, but we have engaged with them in the past to share information with our agency personnel officer community so that these opportunities are shared broadly with city agencies.

We do plan to reach out to extend that offer for them to come and, you know, just share information in general about the program. Do you anticipate that current city employees will enroll in both Reconnect programs and the Mayor's Graduate Scholarship Program, and have you considered staggering the timelines for applications to allow those who were not accepted into a Reconnect program to apply for the Mayor's Scholarship Program, or vice versa?

I'm not sure if, you know, city employees are interested. However, we will, you know, make an effort to ensure that that information is shared broadly, and then we can also think about, like, the timing around the scholarship programs and, you know, deal with that on a case-by-case basis. But I think right now we want to focus on just amplifying the message across city government to ensure employees understand that this program is available to them.

And how are you amplifying those message across city agencies, and how are you getting the word out? Again, all of these programs sound wonderful, but if people don't know about them, they won't take advantage of them. Yes, so we have a community of HR professionals that we meet with on a monthly basis. They're called Agency Personnel Officers.

It's about 200 professionals from across city government representing all city agencies, and we have programs like CUNY Reconnect come and present information and share resources at this meeting so that those APOs can then share that information with employees at their agency. So that's just like high level how we help to amplify programs like CUNY Reconnect. And I'll just— sorry— add, in terms of like our graduate and scholarship programs, we send that information directly to the city employees so that way they're able to determine interest, and then we host information sessions so they can ask more questions.

So we go through the APL pathway but also try to get a direct path to the employees when possible.

Um, I'm going to turn it over to Councilmember Narcisse if you have any questions. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for being here. How much is the city spending on overtime hours? That is not information that we have available here, but we can get back. Okay. All right. Because in 2024, the state comptroller reported an increase from $1.1 billion to $1.3 billion.

So I just want to say the retention, and I'm so happy that you're working on retention, which is so important because we train people, we want to keep them because it eventually costs you more money. What does the data show, if you have it, about why city nurses, EMTs, and other healthcare workers are leaving and which agency we are losing them to?

If you have it, that would be very helpful. Do you have it? We don't currently have that particular information. We can get back to you with the specifics of that. Thank you, ma'am.

H&H isn't on the exit surveys agency list. Does DCAS have any retention data on H&H workers, or is anyone collecting them the same way? So, for H&H, one of the— in terms of the cities and oversight, they participate in some of our initiatives and activities. So, for example, in our citywide employee viewpoint survey, they weren't included in that.

So, that's one of the areas where they conduct their own survey and they're looking at their own initiatives. Okay. So you don't have that. Does the city know what it costs to lose employees and replace them, including recruitment, training, and overtime to cover the vacancy? We do not have that today, but we can get back to you.

Okay. Over 32,000 employees left the city service in FY25, but the overwhelming majority did not conduct an exit survey or exit interview. Local Law 130 requires agencies to offer both. Why? Why are so few department— I mean, departing employees being reached? And which agencies are One of the things that DCAS is required to do is to provide the agencies with access to that survey, so we created a template and issued to all of the agencies and their APOs so that way they can share it with their departing employees.

We also developed a template and a guide for the exit interviews and provided some guidance in person during those interviews. So, you're saying that you're not doing a good job of providing during our APO meetings for agencies and what they could do. Agencies, you know, at their behalf, are responsible for sharing that with their individual employees. It is important to note that this is not a mandatory activity for employees.

As they're departing employees, we usually see also selection bias where they may opt into the survey process and may opt to share their feedback with us, but it's not something that they're mandated to do. to do. So, the agencies just need to make sure that they have the access to provide the information. For me, if you get that information, you can actually find what's the problem and you can bring the solutions.

So, I think that information are very important to share. So, at least we know what we're doing, because like I said, it's We don't want to do pennywise, dollar foolish. We want to make sure that when we train, we spend money. I can give you an example because I've been a registered nurse going around and knows that there's time that little things you can do extra to hold your staffing.

So you want to know why and how can we bring solution to the problems. Because I feel like I stay— I'm being honest. I went to Elmhurst Hospital for a few years. I ended up staying there for 10 years because the environment, the things that they offered me, and the, you know, the things that we get when we ask in the department.

There's certain things that we need to know so at least we can keep our staffing in one place. Resignations went from 71% of departure in FY24 to over 80% in FY25. Which agencies and titles are losing the most people, and do you know where they are going? Why are they leaving? So, um, the resignation may increase, and it depends on the titles.

We may see resignation in some of our social services titles, some of our uniform titles. It varies Based on the agencies. From our citywide— our exit survey, we can see that folks are leaving because they perceive that there isn't a path for career growth, or some cite personal reasons. Others may say that they are looking for, you know, compensation and benefits.

And so what we are looking to do in terms of reflection is to make sure that we're providing agencies and employees with information about how individuals can move throughout the civil service system and use it as a pathway for growth, and also making sure that employees not only know that the system— the process exists, but allowing them the space to engage with it.

One of the things that we haven't spoken about is career counsellors. Agencies— most agencies have career counsellors who are meeting with their employees to talk through some of the opportunities to help guide them in terms of how they can look at other opportunities. opportunities that are available to them. And the goal is, if an employee is moving to another agency, for us, that is a plus because we're still maintaining that knowledge and we're still able to have that, you know, person that's serving the public.

And thank you. And I like the promoting within and pushing— I mean, promoting folks within the structure so at least they don't have to leave us totally. And because we spend money to get people up to date to stay within our facilities. So thank you for your leadership. Continue doing it. But we need to be more active and more engaged to know why people are moving.

And those data can help us, give us the view of what's going on so we can bring the solutions.

So thank you, Madam Chair. Appreciate you. Thank you, Hugo. Thank you, Councilmember. Mr.

Pollack, you mentioned in your testimony today that you, in the last round of bargaining, you used an equity funding concept to target specific titles with— particularly concerning recruitment and retention challenges. How does OLR and the administration flag titles to target With the equity funding concepts that you mentioned in your testimony, is this based on a recruitment and— is this based on recruitment and retention data, or is this also a conversation with unions and other labor partners on their perspective on titles that need attention outside of pattern bargaining?

Thank you, Chair, for that question. It's not just one thing, it's many things. So it is, you know, we do look at data, retention data, recruitment info. We talk to the agencies, and we, of course, talk to the unions across the bargaining table. You know, in the last round, we engaged with a union, and there'd be kind of the question of, you know, is this a union that has a title or titles where this is warranted, this equity fund kind of concept?

And, you know, it's a discussion we would have, and we'd eventually, you know, reach an agreement that did or did not include it. If we agreed there was an issue that where it was warranted, we would include it. And it's something that we— excuse me— it's something that we do with a lot of different unions. You know, most notably DC 37.

We addressed, I would say, you know, dozens of titles through that process with DC 37. But other unions also had it. Probation officers, it helped facilitate their new salary schedule. special officers and school safety agents that changed their salary schedule from 7 steps to 5 steps. We really used it all over. And where are you implementing this concept now?

Are you continuing to have conversations with the unions about where this could be best applied? So for the last round, the Units that had it, the money has been spent essentially. That process is over. It's certainly something as we approach the next round of bargaining that we will consider, kind of how to approach those sales again, whether that concept should be included or a different concept with the same intentions.

Definitely something we'll look at. Is there a possibility of opening— having a re-opener? Like, let's say you conclude bargaining And you've made decisions, but you find in the middle of a 3 or 4-year contract that there's a need, or a need is identified either by the union or by the agency, are you able to reopen bargaining or have a reopener to discuss the equity?

Thank you for that question. You know, subject to mutual agreement, even though our contracts may have a provision that says, you know, neither party, as you're familiar with, shall make demands during the term of the contract. If we mutually agree that we want to reopen it to discuss a particular problem, we can. Okay.

I think those are all my questions. Any others? I think this one, this was mentioned earlier in the DOD and HDT training, but there was no uniformed titles listed. Yeah. So, on the OLR website, it indicates that EAPs are available to employees of non-uniformed agencies. Can you describe the rationale personnel for why certain city employees may not be covered by New York City EAP and what alternative options are available to them?

Of course. So the reason they're not covered is because each uniformed agency has its own employee assistance program. So, you know, the NYPD has one, DOC, Sanitation, Fire, they all have their own programs with their own kind of infrastructure. So, you know, we do coordinate with those programs and and we'll assist them if we can provide assistance.

There have, at times, been initiatives where we've worked with those agencies more closely and to help them out. So, it's not a matter of not wanting to serve those employees. We really want to serve anyone. But, you know, they essentially have their own infrastructures, and a lot of the time, especially with the uniformed agencies, there's value in having someone who really understands that agency and that job.

You know, for example— And they don't have to be uniformed. Often they have, like, peer counselors who may be in the same title as the majority of that workforce. So that's kind of the background behind that.

When OLR is negotiating with bargaining representatives, what factors are considered when developing salary schedules for specific titles, and how commonly are retention bonuses included within salary schedules? So I would say when we're developing a salary schedule, you know, it's about priorities, right? Whether it's a salary schedule or, you know, a longevity-type payment, we have to consider how it would impact recruitment retention.

Obviously, it's a very important factor. You know, we have to consider— sometimes we'll look at where are employees leaving in that title. If we see the problem is, you know, in the first year, we may have put an entry salary and not be willing to, say, drop that down to elevate the more senior salary. If it's a title where people are leaving for some reason at year 6 or 7, maybe we need to provide a barter or longevity that can bump up the salary at that point.

So it's nuanced. We always listen to the union, their view about what should happen. But obviously we are also always interested in data about where there are issues. And, you know, for example, we wouldn't want to— something that often happens in bargaining has happened is you drop the starting salary a little bit for new employees to fund something else.

Sometimes increases for more senior employees, something we've done before. And, you know, it's not always warranted and sometimes it can be counterproductive. So we always want to make sure we're cautious of doing anything like that. So, yeah, how, how Are you looking at the, you know, the exit surveys and the data from the exit surveys and the exit interviews to determine, you know, what job titles might need a bump at a particular point in time, or— We will certainly, as we approach the new round, you know, review the exit surveys and the citywide employment viewpoint survey.

But, you know, always want to be conscious of hearing from the unions about what they view the problems as, as the representatives of their members, and would want to look at data. We can look at where people are leaving. So if there's a title that we know has retention issues, we can look at what year people tend to leave.

Are they leaving in the first years, or for some reason, which is more rare, are they leaving at 10 years? And are you sharing that data with the unions? The exit data and the survey data? Not directly, but the report is available on DCAS website. Okay.

So we've— you've discussed a wide range of programs administered by DCAS and other agencies that strive to provide city workers with unique resources and opportunities. Do you believe that OLR has a role to play in increasing employees' awareness of these? You mentioned you have a communications department now. And I just want to hear more about that and what you see your role is in increasing employee awareness of these programs and— I think that's a great question.

How do you carry out those responsibilities? Thank you for the question. You know, regarding the programs DHS is a part of, I think, you know, DHS does an excellent job of promoting that. We will work with them, especially where, you know, it's helpful to get the unions involved. We'll often connect them, but they also have their own relationship with unions and can promote those.

I think from the OLR perspective, You know, we want to certainly focus on the programs that we offer that we need to get the word out about.

If a city employee is reliant on benefits like SNAP or CHIP, additional income can lead to such employees crossing the income threshold and making them ineligible for benefits while still experiencing financial hardship. Are city employees given the option to opt in or opt out of receiving such bonuses if it will only exacerbate their financial insecurity? Thanks for the question.

That's not something we have encountered. You know, when we have a bonus or salary payment, it's mandatory. I don't think we've encountered a situation where we've been asked whether an employee can waive it by either a union or an agency. We'd certainly consider it if that happened. Yeah. I'm more concerned about, like, bonuses that might be a one-time payment that might temporarily knock them off, you know, eligibility.

It's not a wage increase necessarily, which I find problematic. So, yeah, it's good to know. Okay.

I think that concludes my questions. Thank you so much for participating in our hearing today. Thank you. Okay, do we have a panel? We have testimony. Okay. Okay. Thank you again.

I now open the floor to public testimony. Before we begin, I remind members of the public that this is a formal government proceeding and that decorum shall be observed at all times. As such, members of the public shall remain silent at all times. The witness table is reserved for people who wish to testify. No video recording or photography is allowed from the witness table.

Further, members of the public may not present audio or video recordings as testimony, but may submit transcripts of such recordings to the sergeant-at-arms for inclusion in the hearing record. If you wish to speak at today's hearing, please fill out an appearance card with the sergeant-at-arms. Thank you. And wait for your name to be called. Once you have been recognized, you will have 2 minutes to speak on today's oversight topic of municipal retention.

If you have a written statement or additional written testimony you wish to submit for the record, please provide a copy of that testimony to the sergeant-at-arms. You may also email written testimony to testimony@council.nyc.gov within 72 hours of this hearing. Thank you. Audio and video recordings will not be accepted. When you're— when you hear your name, please come up to the witness panel.

For the first panel, we invite Rose Lovaglio-Miller and Katherine Vaughn. Hi. Yep. Good afternoon. No, it's still morning. Good morning. Good morning. And yes, please proceed. Okay. Good morning, Chair Alderball.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My testimony, my written testimony has been submitted. via email to you all. I'm not going to read my testimony because I'm not very good at that, but I do want to speak to retention in the City of New York. District Council— oh, I apologize. My name is Rose Lovaglio-Mella. I'm the Associate Director of District Council 37, to the Executive Director Henry Garrido.

District Council 37 represents more than 90,000 municipal workers in the City of New York. which provide the essential services to the constituents of New York on a day-to-day basis. What we've noticed in the retention of city employees is that the city does a lot in recruitment areas, not as much in retention areas. And I know the city came up here and testified about all these different programs that they have.

Some of them I've heard for the first time. sitting here today. So, of course, that leads me to think about how are— how are the employees in these agencies getting the information, or are they getting the information? And I think they're very good programs that they're talking about. However, they're not necessarily being utilized. I know they reach out to the HR departments of the agencies.

Who the HR departments are giving that information to leaves a lot to be desired or understood. Thank you. There are also many other things. I know the city also testified to our contract, our 2021 to 2026 contract, which we thought was a good contract where we negotiated 16.21% increases for our members, along with an equity panel, additional compensation fund, signing bonus, things of that magnitude.

However, the prices in New York metropolitan area rose approximately 21%. That's right. during that time, with rents going up, cost of food, utilities, and transportation. So, you know, even though we may sit at the table to negotiate decent, good wage increases, it doesn't always translate over a 5-year period when inflation and cost of living increases larger than the actual wage increase that you receive.

One other thing that I would also like to bring that actually isn't in my written testimony is we've also been trying to talk to the administration about municipal housing programs. One of the things that we find very difficult with our workforce is being able to afford rent in the City of New York. Unfortunately, we have a lot of members that are actually homeless, and how can we try to get them out of shelters— some of them not even in shelters, living out of their cars— into a— Housing.

Stable living environment. So we've been trying to talk to the city again about a municipal housing program. You know, they talk about all these developments that come in and are doing residential housing and affordable housing. My question to them is what is considered affordable? What they deem affordable is not necessarily affordable to a city employee. So we look across that.

District Council 37 represents Titles from accountants to zookeepers. We represent some of the highest-paid workers, but we also represent some of the lowest-paid workers. We represent school lunch helpers, city park workers that can't afford to live in what they call affordable housing. So we would love for the city to turn some of their attention and looking at creating housing programs for the municipal workforce, especially since there's a residency requirement for the first 2 years for the majority of the jobs.

Thank you. that they take. We also wanted to talk about the hard-to-recruit titles. So the City of New York has the opportunity to deem titles that have large vacancies as hard to recruit. There are some— there is a listing of hard-to-recruit titles already out there. By deeming a title hard to recruit, it eliminates the residency requirement. It can eliminate the new hire rate, that 15% lower salary. for new hires that they have.

There's things that are at their disposal, tools that are at their disposal that they can utilize that they are not necessarily utilizing at this time. I know they also spoke about the new DCAS advisory committee that the unions are a part of. I will say to you and submit to you that it's been interesting. We have been having a lot of meetings.

Some of the feel on the union side, though, is that the city already has an agenda and a plan of what it is they would like to do, and they're basically trying to get us to sign on to it. So when we talk about things like that and you talk about retention, we talk about competitive titles versus noncompetitive titles, right?

And just for the record, competitive titles take an exam. Noncompetitive titles are basically appointed. The difference— and the city made a proposition about changing the classification and civil service status. for a lot of these competitive titles to noncompetitive. However, the noncompetitive titles don't get the same rights as the competitive titles. Unfortunately, and for lack of a better term, we deem them almost like a second-class citizen, which is not something that you want to be in.

I could work for the city for 20 years in a competitive status. I'm entitled to certain leave rights. As a noncompetitive, I'm not entitled to those leave rights. 3.5 slope, things of that magnitude. So It's things like that that we think they should look at. One, we're not in favor of reclassifying. We think that they need to be able to provide exams for the tests that are out there.

We have looked at— worked with them in job specifications and changing required qualifications. Some areas we agree and some we don't. For example, the police communication technician, which we know is 911 operators, they would like to lower the requirement. Our position is we don't think that a high school graduate, could be 17 years of age, might be at a maturity level to deal with some of the stressful situations as a 911 operator.

How would we be able to support that? The 911 operators is a perfect example of a retention issue that we have. We can have 100 people apply to be in the class. By the end of that class, we're down to 70. They don't even make it through the training academy. So things like that, we think they need to just be a little bit more conscientious as to some of the requests that they're making in regard to how we change these specifications.

I mean, I could go on and on. We could talk about the equity in salaries. We could talk about wage reopeners that we do not currently participating with the city, City of New York. However, I really think my time here is not to bash the city. My time here is to really try to be a partner with them and for them to utilize the unions in a partnership in a real way, not a superficial way, because I think that is what will be best for all city constituents, employees, just everyone.

Thank you. Thank you. I really— I appreciate your testimony. Do you believe that housing instability is a reason for high turnover in some of these titles? So, unfortunately, I will say yes, because when you have employees that don't know where they're going to lay their head or they're worried about paying rent or, you know, so many other things, are top of mind, you're not getting the best employee when they come into work.

So then that ends up leading to disciplinary problems and things of that magnitude where the city will actually— you know, we do have a lot of people that resign, but we also have people that they terminate. So some, you know, not always because of their own power. So I think housing is a big part of it. And I think if the city offers it as a city employee, that's an incentive for people to come work That will be a recruitment tool, but it will also be a retention tool because they know that they have somewhere to live.

If I leave the city, I might not be eligible for this housing. Thus, let me stay here because I have a place to live. And I'd like to hear some of your ideas about the municipal housing program. We may not be able to discuss it at this hearing, but happy to sit down with you. Absolutely. As we have many times.

We have a housing program at D.C. 37 for our members specifically. So I would love to have the opportunity to sit with you and bring some of them in to express it even more. Yeah. That would be great. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Catherine. Good morning, Chair Aldabal. Thank you so much for letting me testify. testify. My name is Catherine Vaughn, and I'm the co-founder and co-executive director of Abundance New York.

We applaud the progress that DCAS has made this year, from faster exam results to the new Jobs NYC Center. But this year, the mayor's management report still cited insufficient staffing about 20 times as the reason why agencies fell short on other critical metrics, from ambulance response times to inspections of our drinking water. Last month, this committee examined how the city recruits new public servants, and recruitment is one important lever to address the city's vacancies.

But as Rose just shared, retention is another, and it's often a more cost-effective one. The data points to 2 patterns. First, that turnover happens early. In fiscal year 2024, 60% of city employees who resigned had been in city service for less than 5 years. And then second, it's most acute in frontline roles. In FY 2025, 295 child protective specialists resigned from ACS.

The Department of Buildings has reported 16% annual attrition among its inspectors. Departing employees tell us why. The top reason is career advancement, and only 29% rate their pay positively. When workers resign, agencies have to restart this costly cycle of recruiting, testing, training, and have overtime cover the gap in the meantime. Citywide overtime grew from $1.66 billion in 2015 to $2.6 $7.71 billion in 2025.

We urge the committee to treat retention as one of the best investments the city can make, and we propose 4 priorities. First, keep people through their first 5 years. There are some examples that, you know, ACS has offered a model worth testing around providing automatic raises at 6 and 18 months, which is a critical window when a lot of people leave.

And, you know, the city can measure whether these retention tools are working and expand the ones that do. The second is recognizing that paying to retain workers costs less than paying to replace them. This principle is borne out in functions like emergency medical services. You, you have FDNY EMTs topping out at less than $60,000 after 5 years, while firefighters are earning nearly double.

So many EMTs leave for the firehouse or for similar jobs in the private sector. These departures are costly. EMS union leaders estimate that training a new EMT costs roughly $42,000. And IBO found that EMS overtime rose more than 40% as attrition grew, with every 100 vacancies keeping about 27 ambulance tours off the street each day. But investing in retention works.

I noticed that you talked about 911 call operators, police communications technicians. When they won pay increases a few years ago, as well as overtime limits and compressed schedules, delayed calls fell by over 40%. Our third proposal is to plan for departures before they happen. Many departures are predictable. We know how much of the city's workforce is eligible for retirement, and we also know about promotion schedules when there are promotional exams offered.

For example, with EMTs promoting to the firehouse, and then the final piece. You know, I was heartened to hear so many members of this committee ask great questions about the visibility and data around the workforce. The workplace assessments that this. Committee reviewed are a strong start, but they leave important gaps. Fewer than half of departing employees offered the exit survey completed, and the survey asks why people leave, but they don't ask where they're going.

And some of the most useful staffing metrics like vacancies and attrition by title and time to hire by agency and title are not in the mayor's management report or easily accessible. So we urge DCAS to publish these statistics, including through creating agency dashboards that leaders can use to drive improvements and that also the public can use to hold the city accountable.

We encourage the city to pursue these reforms in partnership with its workforce and their unions, potentially through a standing labor-management forum on civil service modernization that's kicked off with this committee. And we hope that you see us as a resource and partner in your efforts to retain our city's best and brightest. Thank you.

Thank you very much for your testimony today. I have so many questions, but I don't— I feel like I can't ask them all today. But I think we do need to continue our conversations and discussions. I think I'll ask the same question that I asked the last time when it came to recruitment. What legislative solutions can the City Council employ to, you know, make these improvements happen, whether it's data, creating a dashboard, mandating the creation of these dashboards?

Do you have any ideas? Either one of you can answer. I'll just— I can go quickly. I think it's from the testimony that we heard today, it seems like a lot of these retention measures are really at the discretion of agencies, which I understand. And every agency has to kind of run its own way. So, I do think that data is a place where if we had more centralized information, like there were many stats that you all asked for from DCAS that they weren't able to provide right now.

Or maybe they don't have access to because the agencies are holding that data. And so, I hate to ask for like collect more data, publish another report. I want to make sure that there's a good feedback loop. But I do think that if we knew like all these questions about where are the retention issues the worst, where are you seeing people leave, are there managers, are there agencies, are there jobs where you're seeing people leaving so early and we're having to pay every single year to recruit and train new people and then they're leaving?

I think that would, we would see that pay for itself. Like, the work to compile that data would allow us to make better decisions across the city. So I think that's a place to start. It's certainly not a place to finish, but I think that could be a good starting point. Thank you. I agree with everything she said, the reports and stuff, you know.

However, I also say that a lot of it, it's hard to kind of put in words. It's the intangible. Right. A lot of our older staff that are leaving, one, advancement, promotional opportunities, they feel like they get looked over. Sometimes, even when you get promoted, the process that goes through, you have to wait. You got to get OMB approval.

So, first, the agency has to reach out to OMB to get approval to fill a line. Then they fill a line. Then they got to reach back out to OMB to get approval to actually put the person in the line. It becomes a very lengthy process. A lot of times what happens is people end up working in a capacity waiting for the approval, but when they get it, it doesn't go back to the day they started, right?

So then that's when we have to end up, like, filing a grievance or something on their behalf. So, I think that process can be streamlined. I know that is something that we're talking about, and OMB swears that they're willing to do it, but, you know, we'll see. So, that's some of it. And the other part of it that's an intangible is really just the treatment of workers at the work location.

Most people want to come in, do their job, go home. They don't want to deal with a whole lot of drama. I mean, we have some that do, but then— just being honest. But then the way management deals with those individuals on the work location is also just a whole other issue. So, yeah. And how do you think that can be improved?

So, really, give you an example. District Council 37 accreted some managerial titles that are not doing necessarily managerial work. We started this process in 2015, about 2015. We're still trying to negotiate salaries for them, right? So, and I'm saying to you, when the city hired them, they— some get $50,000, some get $190,000. Like, that range is just ridiculous.

And they're doing similar work? Yeah, it depends on what office you're in, or, you know, I could work— 3 people could work for HRA, all have the same title, and all make varying, you know, salaries, depending maybe on the program or what have you. As, you know, unions, we never tell people to take money out of anybody's pocket.

But what we are trying to do is raise that floor and have something more sustainable and streamlined where if I'm getting promoted into this title, I have an idea of what I'm making. It's not necessarily left up to the person that's hiring me. Things like that.

Thank you again for your testimony today, and we'll definitely be following up with you on some of these questions. Thank you. Thank you very much. I don't know if there's anybody on Zoom. If there is anyone on Zoom, which I don't think there is, and wish to speak but have not yet had the opportunity to do so, please use the raise your hand function and our staff will unmute you.

Nobody's on Zoom. I had 2 folks register, 2 people registered to speak today. I'm going to call their names. Mamadou Juma Barry and Chaudhry Hassan Mahmood. Are they here? Okay. It does sound like there was someone in the room who was putting in a witness slip. Nope, I don't think so. No, I think he's going to go get him.

We're waiting on somebody who I think signed up to speak but may have left the room. Okay. All right. I'm going to give the sergeant a minute to track down the person that signed up to speak. Oh. Okay. Matthew Lee. Matthew Lee. Yep. Come up to the witness table. Whenever you're ready. Awesome.

Hi, my name is Matthew Lee. I'm a legislative fellow actually for. the council member Mercedes Narcisse. This is also my first time speaking, so if I do break the quorum or any of the rules, I apologize. I'm, uh, you know, taking it slow. Um, I wanted to talk about the testimony that I heard in this chamber and, um, what I think might be a good direction for how to improve retention amongst municipal workers.

The 2 biggest things that I've noticed which we've had previous testimony point out, as well as, um, uh, it's basically that turnover happens very early, right? Um, the second thing that we also noticed is that employees don't know their benefits. As we talked about extensively, or rather you talked about extensively, with DCAS, right, there's a whole lot of effort in how do we educate current city employees on the benefits that they do have.

And I think that lack of knowledge combined with, you know, jumping into the job early in those 1 to 4 years, as DCAS talked about, as well as previous testimony, reveals that that lack of knowledge on what is available to city employees combined with the heavy work that we all do trying to help the city makes it really difficult for them to stay invested in that job.

Right. And I think rather than simply thinking about it as just how do we get advancements in career and how do we get people to move up, we also think about maybe how do we get them to feel like they have those benefits regardless of whether they know about it, right? I mean, to the previous speaker and testimony's point regarding housing, That's something that regardless of whether you're making enough money or not, you feel the pressure of losing your housing more than you do the benefits that you are getting from the city at that point, right?

And I think, you know, there's certainly many— Have to wrap it up. Appreciate you. There are certainly many ways that that this council can work on it. But I think even something simple like free transit access for all city employees would be a way in making sure that if we are moving to change this city for the better, that we can move freely and we can feel that benefit without even having someone tell us, hey, you have this benefit, right?

Because it's as simple as just not even thinking about tapping the card anymore. Thank you. Thank you.

I appreciate it. So everyone can submit written testimony at testimony@council.nyc.gov within 72 hours of this hearing. And we thank the administration and the public for attending this hearing to share their thoughts. Thank you. on this topic today and look forward to following up on these issues. With that, the hearing is now adjourned. Thank you, Chair. Thank you.