IVGREATER NEW YORK
The city of New York includes five counties: New York, Kings, Queens, Bronx, and Richmond. In one hundred years, the population of New York City grew from 50,000 to 4,000,000 people. It now has a population of nearly 6,000,000, which is about one-half the population of the State, and it is the second city in size in the world.
The government of the city is strictly prescribed by its charter; for any improvement that it desires outside of the provisions of that charter, the city must go for permission to the State Legislature.
For convenience in government the city is divided into five boroughs: Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Richmond (Staten Island).
The Mayoris the chief executive of the city. He is elected for four years and has a salary of $15,000. He has powers of appointmentand removal over a vast number of important positions, including the heads of the big city departments. Like the Governor of the State and the President of the United States, he initiates legislation by sending once a year a message to the Board of Aldermen containing a general statement of the government and financial condition of the city, and recommending such measures as he deems advisable. He may ask for special legislation at any time.
All ordinances and by-laws passed by the Board of Aldermen go to the Mayor for approval. If he vetoes a measure, the Board of Aldermen may pass it over his veto by a two-thirds or three-fourths vote, with the exception of the granting of franchise rights, where his veto is absolute.
The Comptrolleris at the head of the financial affairs of the city. His term of office is four years, and salary $15,000. He may appoint three deputies at $7,500 each, an assistant deputy at $3,000, besides other heads of the various divisions of the finance department; but the minor positions are under the Civil Service.
The President of the Board of Aldermenis elected for the same term as the Mayor, and receives a salary of $7,500. He takesthe Mayor’s place in case of absence or death.
The Presidents of Manhattan, Bronx, and Brooklyn Boroughsreceive $7,500 a year; of Queens and Richmond Boroughs, $5,000. They are elected for four years, and each president has general oversight over streets, bridges, sewers, and buildings in his borough. He may appoint a commissioner of public works, and a superintendent of buildings for his borough, and local school boards. In Queens and Richmond the borough presidents have charge of street-cleaning.
The Board of Aldermenis the legislative body of the city. It consists of seventy-three men elected from Aldermanic districts. They serve for a term of two years, and receive a salary of $2,000 each. This board makes the ordinances for the government of the city. It makes and enforces police, fire, building, health, and park regulations; it makes by-laws for the regulation of public markets, streets, public buildings, docks; for inspection of weights and measures; regulating places of amusement, height of buildings; licensing cabs, truckmen, and pawnbrokers, and regulations for the suppression of vice. A city clerk and a clerk of the board at a $7,000 salary each, are appointed by the board.
The Board of Estimate and Apportionmentis the most important of the city boards. It frames the city budget, which has to be adopted by the Board of Aldermen. It also passes on bills granting franchise rights. It represents the whole city, and consists of the Mayor, Comptroller, President of the Board of Aldermen, each with three votes; Presidents of Manhattan and Brooklyn Boroughs, with two votes each; and Presidents of Bronx, Richmond, and Queens Boroughs, with one vote each.
Among the important appointive positions of the city which are in the hands of the Mayor are the following:
The Corporation Counsel, with a salary of $15,000 a year, is the head of the law department of the city, and is the city’s legal adviser. He has over fifty assistant counsels to appoint, with salaries ranging from $3,000 to $10,000 a year, and a host of deputy and junior assistants.
The City Chamberlainreceives and pays out all moneys for the city—salary $12,000. He may appoint a deputy at $5,000 a year. The abolishment of the office of Chamberlain as being unnecessary was recommended by a recent incumbent; but it is too large a plum to be lightly discarded.
The President of the Department of Taxes and Assessmentsreceives $8,000 a year. Six other tax commissioners are appointed with salaries of $7,000 each, two of whom must be of the opposing party.
The Commissioners of Accounts, of Correction, of Docks and Ferries, and of Health, the Fire Commissioner, Police Commissioner, Commissioner of Licenses, of Plants and Structures, of Public Charities, the Street-cleaning and Tenement House Commissioners, Commissioner of Water Supply, Gas and Electricity, and the chairman of the Parole Commission, all receive $7,500 a year; the Commissioner of Weights and Measures, $5,000 a year.
There is a new Commissioner of Public Markets, and a Supervisor of theCity Record, a city publication which must print all ordinances which involve the spending of city money, granting a franchise, or making a specific improvement, before they are passed by the Board of Aldermen.
There are many other less important offices to be filled, and the Borough Presidents have still further appointments.
The Board of Educationhas been reduced from forty-six to seven members, of whom two are now women. In addition there areforty-six local school boards in the various school districts, each consisting of five members appointed by the Borough President and the District Superintendent of the local school district. These have now been divided among the seven members of the new School Board.
The Board of Electionsconsists of four commissioners, two Republicans and two Democrats, appointed by the Board of Aldermen for two years, with a salary of $5,000 each. This board determines the election-district boundaries, chooses about 2,000 polling-places, and appoints about 17,000 election officials. Since 1915 the city has allowed school-houses and other public buildings to be used as polling-places, and at the last election nearly 1,000 districts were supplied in this way.
Local Improvement Boards: The city is divided into twenty-five districts, in each of which there is a Local Improvement Board, consisting of the Borough President and the Aldermen of the Aldermanic districts included in the local improvement district.
County Government Within the City: Each county included in the city of New York has a separate county government, independent of the city, with its sheriff, countyclerk, district attorney, and its county court in every county but New York. The office of Sheriff in New York County has been one of the highest paid offices in the State, because of its fees. These have amounted to from $80,000 to $100,000 or more a year, and the county and Sheriff have divided them. The county now receives all the fees, and the Sheriff a salary of $12,000 a year; but he cannot be re-elected, and the term of office has been increased from two to four years.
Courts—Supreme Courts: The first judicial department, and the first judicial district of the State are formed by New York and Bronx Counties. Brooklyn, Queens, and Richmond form the second. The Special and Trial terms of the Supreme Court try both criminal and civil cases with and without a jury, as in other counties.
County Courtsare held in Kings, Queens, Bronx, and Richmond Counties, and each of them except Richmond has aSurrogate’s Court. New York County elects two Surrogates, for a term of fourteen years each, at a salary of $15,000 a year. In place of the County Court, New York County has aCity Court, which tries civil suits and is a naturalization court, and aCourt of General Sessions, which tries criminal cases. TheCourt ofSpecial Sessions, with a chief justice and fifteen assistant justices appointed by the Mayor, tries cases of misdemeanors, and offenders sent to them by the City Magistrates. One division of this court is the Children’s Court, with one presiding justice and five associate justices, with a court in each borough. These justices hold office for a term of ten years.
Magistrates’ Courtsare held by a large number of magistrates, appointed by the Mayor, and a chief magistrate who has general supervision of them.Municipal Courtsare held in various parts of the city to try small civil suits. There are forty-five Municipal Court districts, in each of which there is a judge elected by the people of the district for a term of ten years.
There are separate Night Courts for both men and women, a Domestic Relations Court, which deals with cases of non-support of wives and children, and poor relations, and a Traffic Court, which deals solely with violations of the traffic laws.
To even mention the various institutions in the city of New York which are engaged in improving the health and social welfare of the people would take many pages. Thereis great need among them of a more clean-cut division of activities, and less overlapping of authority.
The Commissioner of Public Charities, appointed by the Mayor, is responsible for the care of the city’s dependents. In 1915, 350,362 free lodgings were given to dispossessed families and needy men and women. There are 329 institutions receiving money from the city for the care of dependent children, and 22,753 children were in their charge on January 1, 1916. The care which these children have received has been severely criticized. The conflicting authority of the State Board of Charities and the City Board of Inspection of Charitable Institutions, is said to be responsible for this. In the future, the city is to conduct its own inspections. Widows’ pensions are administered for all of Greater New York by oneChild Welfare Boardof nine members appointed by the Mayor, of whom two must be women. They serve for a term of eight years without salary.
The Tenement House Departmentlooks after the 103,882 tenement buildings of the city, and has a force of 193 inspectors, of whom eight are women. There are still about 9,000 dark rooms in the old tenements, built before the law was passed requiring a certainamount of light and air, which have not been made over to meet the new requirements.
The Street-cleaning Departmentemploys regularly about 5,400 men at salaries ranging from $720 to $860 a year.
The Board of Inebrietywas organized to take charge of persons who are chronic addicts to alcohol or drugs, to treat them as victims of disease, and send them to a farm where treatment looking toward a cure is combined with farm work, truck gardening, etc. The great needs of this work cannot be met until further accommodations are made for patients.
The Municipal Civil Service Commission, consisting of three members appointed by the Mayor, maintains a regular staff of examiners of applicants for city positions. The regular payroll of the city includes nearly 85,000 persons, of whom about 30,000 are not under the jurisdiction of the Civil Service. There are also about 20,000 others who are employed part of the time.
There is a freepublic employment bureauwhich is growing steadily and is placing over two thousand applicants a month, and a Commissioner of Weights and Measures.
The management of each one of the large departments of city government requiresspecial and technical training. A corporation manager would search the country for the best man to be found for each particular department.
School-teachers and school superintendents are chosen because of their training and experience. Minor city employees are appointed from Civil Service lists; but the custom of American cities is to appoint men at the heads of city departments who have distinguished themselves for party service.
The Budget for Greater New Yorkis made up, beginning in June, and being adopted November 1st. Estimates of the needs of each department for the coming year are submitted to the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, and are studied by sub-committees who conduct public hearings, when the representatives of each department and the official examiners report on their estimates and each item may be examined and discussed. A tentative budget is printed for public use and the last week in October public hearings are held. By November 1st the budget must be adopted by the Board of Estimate and Apportionment and sent to the Board of Aldermen for their approval.
“Pay as you go” was a financial policy adopted in 1914 to relieve the tremendous piling up of future indebtedness of the city for permanent improvements of the non-revenue producing class. During the years 1914-1918 an annually increasing proportion of the cost of these improvements was to be included in the tax budget, and by 1918 the entire cost was to be met by taxation, and thereafter no bonds were to be issued for this class of improvement. Every dollar borrowed at 4½ per cent. interest on a fifty-year bond costs $1.69 in interest charges. While taxes are higher for a time under the pay-as-you-go plan, the actual cost of improvements to the city is much less.
The Mayor of New York City is the head of a corporation whose budget of expenditure, in 1916, was $212,000,000. Before the war the general expenses of the United States Steel Corporation were about $34,000,000 a year. The salary of the president of the Steel Corporation, or of any one of the largest business corporations of the country, would be from $50,000 to $100,000 a year. The Mayor of New York City receives $15,000 a year. But a business corporation would insist on having for president a man whose training and business experience had madehim peculiarly fitted for the job, while our practice in choosing a man for mayor is to give little consideration to special training and experience in the work of city administration.