NYC NOW - June 7, 2024: Morning Headlines

Episode Date: June 7, 2024

Get up and get informed! Here's all the local news you need to start your day: Governor Hochul's plan to replace the MTA's anticipated revenue from the now-shelved congestion pricing plan is getting a chilly reception in Albany, WNYC's Jon Campbell reports. Meanwhile, New York City child care centers say it's getting harder to hire and retain workers because they earn thousands of dollars less than their public school counterparts. WNYC's Karen Yi has more. Plus, a group of New York City students and advocates are pushing to reduce the number of police in public schools. Finally, on this week’s segment of On The Way, transportation reporter Stephen Nessen and editor Clayton Guse react to the indefinite pause of congestion pricing and discuss whether or not the move is permanent.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Friday, June 7th. Here's the morning headlines from Michael Hill. Governor Hockel's plan to replace the MTA's anticipated revenue from the now shelved congestion pricing plan is getting a chilly reception in Albany. WNBC's John Camel explains. The governor is pushing to hike a payroll tax on New York City businesses,

which is used to help fund the MTA. But Democrats in the Senate in particular aren't into it. Liz Kruger of Manhattan chairs the Senate Finance Committee. It's not a corporate tax. It's a tax on the workers. And I do not think we have an appetite for that in the Senate. Kruger is among a faction of Democratic lawmakers angered by Hokel's decision.

If the governor doesn't get a tax hike before lawmakers end their session this week, she may have to tap the state's reserves, at least until lawmakers returned to Albany, in January. New York City Child Care Centers say it's getting harder to hire and retain workers because they earn thousands of dollars less than their counterparts employed by the public schools. WNYC's Karen Yee reports. The pay disparities are pretty stark. One survey conducted by United Neighborhood Houses show a teacher with a master's degree in a preschool community program earns an average

of $14,000 less than an entry-level teacher working at the Department of Education. The DOE runs its own programs for three and four-year-olds, but also funds and nonprofits that offer families subsidized care, often for longer hours and all year long. Providers are urging the city to address the pay gap as they negotiate a trio of contracts with the union representing some child care workers. They say without more competitive wages, they'll continue scrambling to keep classrooms open. A group of New York City students and advocates are pushing to reduce a number of police in public schools. they rallied yesterday on the steps of Manhattan's Tweed courthouse. They called on the city to redirect funding to other services. Police and schools that got to stop for counselors, not up.

City Council Member Alexis Avila says the city's budget would be better spent on programs for immigrant students. A spokesperson for the mayor's office says removing school safety agents from schools would jeopardize children's safety. 68 with some clouds now, mostly sunny today in the high of 84. It's Friday. That means it's time for a weekly segment of On the Way, covering all things transportation. That's after the break. I'm Sean Carlson for WNYC. It's Friday, which means it's time for On the Way, our weekly segment breaking down the week's transit news. Joining us is WNIC's transportation reporter Stephen Nesson and editor Clayton Goosa.

We have spent so much time together discussing congestion pricing. This is the plan to toll drivers. We're saying this for like the umpteenth time to toll vehicles entering in Hatton south of 60th Street in order to fund subway repairs and other transit projects. We've talked about its implementation, the carveouts, the lawsuits, where the money would go. And now it appears it was all for not in the immediate future anyway. It's after Governor Hokel indefinitely paused the plans rollout. Stephen, how much of a surprise was this? Sean, I can't like oversell what a bombshell this was.

This was not on anyone's bingo card. You know, board members had no clue this was coming. Politicians who had supported it for years were caught off guard. Even insiders who worked very closely with the MTA were totally shocked by this week's developments. You know, supporters of the plan, of course, are enraged. And this includes a wide swath of Democrats at all levels of government, city, state, and federal. Obviously, several MTA board members, especially those appointed by Mayor Adams, are also outraged. But not everyone is outraged, Sean. The governor did this for a reason.

Mayor Adams is supportive of the governor, taxi drivers, the trucking industry. Of course, lawmakers in New Jersey, who I don't think she was necessarily had in mind with this. I did a random sampling today of commuters who would stand to benefit from the tolling program through the subway improvements it would have funded. And even there, the reaction was mixed. We should get rid of those huge cars in the city because they're very threatening and I'm scared for my kids. I'm very happy since I drive into Manhattan a lot. I thought that the price was disproportionate to what they were getting and there was no rewards immediately.

We have to wait, what, a year until supposedly the MTA improves through service. So I think it was the right thing to do. I'd like to see some of this money go to actually fixing something. Like these trains are from the 50s. It's disgusting. It's New York City for Brian L.L. That was 38-year-old Lucas Lores, 65-year-old Kevin Reardon, and 39-year-old Mike Valentine. I should add, I was on the Brian Lair show, and the majority of the callers filling up the lines were supportive of Hockel's move to hold off on the tolls. Yeah, it's kind of hard to overstate how shocked and upset and disappointed. Many of the MTA board members were by this decision. They have a financial responsibility to the MTA and to oversee its finances. congestion pricing supposed to fund $15 billion of subway upgrades suddenly taken away without anyone telling them. Hockel two weeks ago was touting this program. The MTA board twice voted on this

with an overwhelming majority, which was never a foregone conclusion. And now there's a lot of worry that absent this money for these subway upgrades, that the system could fall into a state of disrepair and riders could really suffer in the long term. Now, let's cut through some of this, like, Politics speak here. Hokel says the program is on pause indefinitely. What does that actually mean? Is congestion pricing just dead? Well, it's kind of, it's, but it is, it is political at the end of the day, right? I mean, a lot of the reasoning behind this and the speculation behind this was that this was kind of a handout to suburban voters, suburban drivers, where this program is wildly unpopular, not wildly, but polls show that it's really not that popular. You know, the House Democrats are looking to secure or flip a handful of seats in the suburbs, and doing so, they could flip the whole House of Representatives into Democratic control. So there's big states there, big stakes there. But also at the same time, Hockel kind of has stepped into a political storm of her own creation.

And I'm not sure she really expected that she would get this kind of backlash to it. Yeah. And at this point, I mean, I don't know, you asked, is it dead? I don't see a way forward. The chair or the board of the MTA, I don't think they could just overrule the governor on this. I asked Rachel Fouse with the good government group Reinvent Albany, what she thinks. The CEO and chair of the MTA board are appointed by the governor. It's a bit of a fiction in some ways that they're in an independent agency. We all know that. They are controlled by the governor. And she just directed them to do something. that's completely counter their own financial interests. So whether that crosses a line for staff or board members, you know, it's up for them to decide. Right. And as far as what we've heard from the chair of the MTA, Jan O'Leber, since the news came out, radio silence. And of course, Hockel has the option to bring it back, but she would face maybe some of the same political problems. Hockel has to run for a election in two years.

Is she going to bring this back in advance of that? I don't know. Man, to be a fly on the wall of the halls of power in New York today. Now, you both reported in this week's On the Way newsletter that this is far from the first time New York lawmakers have killed a congestion pricing plan. Give us some other examples of that. Well, I spoke with someone who has had a front row seat to the decades-long fight to charge drivers through congestion pricing. That's Sam Schwartz, the person who coined the term gridlock. And I'm pretty sure he is one of the most disappointed people in the city today. I've seen it killed by an act of Congress.

I've seen it killed by lack of political will, the Bloomberg plan. I've seen lawsuits stop it, but we were 26 days away from it. She could have hung on a little longer, see how it played out, but no, she just caved. Yeah, it's, you know, Schwartz really took us down memory lane here. I mean, Lindsay proposed it in the 1970s eventually got killed. Bloomberg proposed it got really close in 2008. It got killed. This time they've never been so close to a version of congestion price.

tolling motorists in the central business district. The camera readers were up. They held the public hearings. They had signs. There are signs around Manhattan that are still covered that says congestion pricing tolls ahead. Easy pass is still sending out emails about it today. They were at the finish line and they pulled the plug. So people like Schwartz who have tried and failed for decades and decades are the most disappointed this week. What happens next here? Well, as we speak in Albany, lawmakers are working with Hokkel to try to hammer out a last. minute deal in the waning days of this legislative session. There's talk about increasing the tax on businesses, the payroll mobility tax, which astute listeners will remember, was just hiked last

year to help plug an MTA budget shortfall. And many lawmakers are bulking at that. But still, if it could bring in a billion dollars a year, that's how much congestion pricing was going to bring in. Maybe the MTA's capital plan to modernize the subways wouldn't be doomed. Yeah, I mean, they need to find the money somewhere, otherwise they're going to cut the budget or cut these projects. They also need to figure out what happens kind of inside the MTA. The MTA board could override it like we alluded to early. It's never happened. It's be unprecedented.

Then again, a governor of New York has never pulled so much funding so suddenly from the MTA. And there's also a question of what does MTA chair Jan O'Leiber do next? Does he stay around? Does he say, hey, I've supported this. made my career on this. Suddenly the governor pulls the rug out from under him. I mean, this is the guy who compared opponents of the program to climate deniers. He called them traffic deniers. And now he's, you know, sitting at two Broadway downtown at MT headquarters. I'm, you know, wondering what to do next. And I guess we'll, we'll see. They've already, you know, approved the capital plan as well.

That's, you know, the $15 billion to repair the subways. How are they going to amend that? Are What programs are they going to cut? Is it going to be, you know, accessible stations, new signals, subway cars? It'll be a lot of tough decisions in the coming months. That's WNYC editor, Clayton Goosa, and transportation reporter Stephen Nesson. You can stay in the know on all things transit or ask a question of your own by signing up for our weekly newsletter at gothamis.com slash on the way. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WNYC.

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