Rachel FeinbergJournal #1
The Office of Management and Budget is, in effect, New York City government's chief financial office. It examines each aspect of government by looking for ways to improve existing services, making sure that services already being offered are needed and appropriately used and looking ahead to see how current trends could affect the City and the economy. OMB oversees an annual expense budget of $59 billion and a capital budget of more than $15.6 billion a year.
The Housing & Economic Development Task Force, one of 27 task forces within OMB, is responsible for the operating and capital budgets for the Departments of Housing Preservation & Development, Buildings, City Planning, and Small Business Services, as well as various entities including the Housing Development Corporation, the New York City Housing Authority, Economic Development Corporation and the Battery Park City Authority.
Within the housing unit, analysts receive requests for city capital from HPD, HDC and NYCHA for new construction of affordable housing developments (both rental and ownership) and rehabilitation of current developments. Analysts review and conduct analysis of projected cash flows, hard and soft construction costs and all components of a project’s financing. A certificate to proceed (CP) is then issued authorizing the use of city capital. City capital is usually provided in the form of direct capital, land and tax subsidies.
I spent the first week of my internship learning about the NYC affordable housing market and the current difficulties the city is facing during the economic crisis. In particular, I familiarized myself with Mayor Bloomberg’s New Housing Marketplace Plan – the city’s current 10-year plan to create and preserve 165,000 units of affordable housing. In addition, I familiarized myself with important procedures and documents, including Certificates to Proceed, Budget Modification requests, and changes to the city’s 421-a tax abatement program which provides tax subsidies to incentive private developers to create and maintain affordable housing.
I met with the Associate Deputy Director of the Task Force to review my summer projects and began work on two of my projects: creating a cost construction index and tracking Budget Code Modifications. I work daily with a Senior Analyst on the task force.
Journal #2
For the past few weeks, I have been working at Uncommon Schools, my employer before business school. I am working with Laura Lee McGovern, the current Director of Operations for Kings Collegiate Charter School, one of Uncommon’s middle schools in Brooklyn. As the Uncommon network grows (four schools are opening this fall alone), Uncommon’s Operations team is restructuring and just added three Chief Operating Officers to assist the Managing Directors. All three of these COO’s are individual Directors of Operations of schools who have been promoted. Laura is becoming the COO of the Collegiate Network of schools (Uncommon’s Middle School network in Brooklyn). Therefore, with all of the transitions occurring for the Operations team, it has become necessary to create a Director of Operations Transition document.
While Directors of Operations receive extensive training through Uncommon Schools, DOOs are responsible for so many tasks that it seemed logical to use templates to process documents into a simplified and easy-to-use format. This is where I come in. I am utilizing 98 (!) different process documents created by a DOO leaving his position to create a streamlined, high-level DOO Transition Template. Many of these documents are multiple pages and list processes in bulleted sentences or long paragraphs—others include charts. Based on 1-3 priority ranking system, I am going through all of the process documents to create an easy-to-use, general vs. school specific template for each school process. Each template includes the following general categories: Background, DOO Responsibilities, Process and Best Practices. For example, FACILITIES>PERMITS includes high-level information regarding the permitting process for all NYC Public Schools. Each template is limited to two pages, thus greatly cutting down on the paper (and vast amounts of information) a new DOO needs to be successful.
The hope is that my work will simplify and expedite the DOO transition process – this Transition Template (or Handbook) will become the “go to” guide for the DOO On-boarding Process for all Uncommon Schools.
I love being back at the office – there is a constant state of energy and excitement here as new schools open and veteran schools flourish. In fact, teachers report for their first of three weeks of training today, August 10th.
