Government Watchdog: Mamdani Must Harness City Tech for Everyday New Yorkers
A new report by watchdog group Reinvent Albany recommends a new management structure for the City of New York’s technology and data offices and urges the incoming Mamdani administration to take five steps to improve how technology can be used to deliver better services to everyday New Yorkers.
The recommendations in the report are distilled from interviews with roughly a dozen former NYC government technology managers and data and digital leaders from other municipalities and states. Importantly, the authors and the experts they interviewed agree that the City of New York’s digital infrastructure and technology practices need fundamental reforms and have drifted away from a relentless focus on improving how agencies deliver services to the public.
Major Technology Management Restructuring: No More Tech Kings, Czars
The report argues that compared to any state, New York City offers an extraordinarily diverse range of services via a very large number of agencies employing a range of technologies. Because these technologies are organic to agency function and service delivery, the authors believe agency technology management, budgeting, and policy should be decided by agency Commissioners, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Deputy Mayors, and the Mayor – not tech czars. Accordingly, the report recommends that the City’s technology agencies and data offices be restructured and includes a detailed organizational chart.
New Technology Management Structure Reporting to the Deputy Mayor for Operations
- Department of Information Technology (DoITT) is restored to its previous role as a shared service agency providing enterprise wide technology infrastructure and cyber security and led by a Commissioner
- Offices of open data and data analytics, digital services, data privacy, and 311
Five Policy Recommendations
- Reform the technology procurement and contracting process so City agencies have better options for designing, building, and delivering City services.
- Make it easier and faster to hire technologists in City agencies and support their work.
- Relentlessly focus on the quality of services that the City provides, understanding that technology is not the end goal, but plays a critical role in service delivery.
- Improve the quality, stewardship, and usefulness of the City’s critical data resources – both public and private.
- Restructure the City’s technology and data offices for collaboration and clear lines of accountability and reorient towards service.
The Authors
Reinvent Albany advocates for open, accountable New York government. Since our launch in 2010, we have advocated for using information technology to increase government transparency, accountability, and efficiency in New York City and New York State. We played a key role creating and passing the NYC Open Data Law in 2012 – the first in the world – and creating New York State’s Open NY and the MTA’s Open Data program. Since then we have been heavily involved in the state and city’s modernization and expansion of their data and transparency platforms for spending, contracting, capital expenditures, campaign finance, lobbying, budgeting, and corporate subsidies.
Martha Norrick is the former director of the New York City Mayor’s Office of Data Analytics during the de Blasio and Adams administration, and was previously Director of Data Strategy for the Mayor’s Office of Economic Opportunity. Martha has a graduate degree in informatics and is a Python developer.