Lander for Mayor

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As Trump Assaults the Federal Workforce, and Adams’ Degrades City Agencies, Lander Proposes to Build a World-Class NYC Workforce

Lander: “The key to making NYC government work better lies in modernizing our civil service system, investing in world-class talent, respecting City workers and holding them accountable for outcomes — not in corrupt leadership, staff vacancies, and agency chaos.” 

NEW YORK — As President Trump wages war on the federal workforce, and as City agencies continue to suffer vacancies and a crisis of leadership, Brad Lander today announced a plan to attract and retain a World-Class NYC Workforce that delivers more effective, high-quality services to New Yorkers. Lander’s plan includes cutting the bureaucratic red tape that prevents top talent from being hired and retained by the City, an innovative “Homes for City Workers” program to help finance homes for City employees, and a stronger focus on delivering the outcomes that all New Yorkers deserve.

“Our government employees keep New York City running — they teach our kids, clean our streets, and keep our neighborhoods safe. They deserve to know that New York City has their back, and New Yorkers deserve to see the high-quality services we all rely on,” said Brad Lander. “The key to making NYC government work better lies in modernizing our civil service system, investing in top-tier talent, respecting City workers and holding them accountable for outcomes — not in corrupt leadership, staff vacancies, and agency chaos.” 

As Comptroller, Lander published a NYC Agency Staffing Dashboard that highlights government workforce vacancy rates remain roughly double their pre-pandemic levels, which has been recognized as a national model by the Five Borough Institute. High levels of vacancies prevent city agencies from delivering essential services for everyday New Yorkers, from processing food stamps to conducting building inspections, as Lander’s office found in a report published last year.

To help City agencies recruit and retain the best talent and make homeownership within the five boroughs more accessible, Lander’s Homes for City Workers plan will finance homes for municipal employees: City pension funds will pay half of the home’s purchase price, own half of the property’s value, including half of the home’s appreciation, thus requiring no public subsidy. A pension investment of $400 million will support a pilot round of more than 1,000 homes for City workers, while generating strong returns for City pension funds. 

To cut the bureaucratic red tape and other barriers that prevent many from working for the city, and to create a 21st-century civil service system, Lander will convene a blue-ribbon panel of workforce experts including public and private sector management leaders, labor unions, academia, and key partners in Albany within his first 100 days in office. The blue-ribbon, World-Class NYC Workforce Panel would:

  • Review the need for examinations for titles that already require state licensure; 

  • Explore the elimination of bachelor’s degrees where they pose unnecessary barriers to entry;

  • Reorder the hiring process to allow testing as part of a hiring process, rather  than a precursor to it;

  • Explore the creation of new roles with higher salaries that are significantly more competitive in fields where the city continually loses employees to the private sector, such as technology; 

  • Eliminate civil service exam fees for titles that earn less than the state’s median wage;

  • Identify steps that better support City workers in their jobs (e.g. better uses of technology, improvements in working conditions such as decrepit NYPD precinct houses, etc) in order to more effectively recruit and retain top-tier talent; and

  • Develop new approaches for aligning City employee performance with the outcomes New Yorkers need and deserve, along with public transparency tools to help New Yorkers see the results.  

Read the full solution here.


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Team Lander