Mayor Eric Adams’ administration wants to cut funding and staffing for the commission charged with enforcing New York City’s robust anti-discrimination laws — but members of the City Council and others are looking to shore up the agency as complainants wait months for their cases to be heard.
The mayor’s preliminary budget proposal for next fiscal year sets the Commission on Human Rights’ total funding at $13.7 million, $407,000 less than what the Council and Adams approved last spring for the current fiscal year. The legislature is currently considering Adams’ latest spending plan.
Many councilmembers and social justice advocates are looking to boost the commission’s funding by at least $3 million. They argue that it has been hamstrung by a lack of staff, with just 25 enforcement attorneys today, down from 61 in 2018.
It can take months to get an appointment with commission staff, and fewer complaints are being filed, according to agency officials and data from the mayor’s office. Meanwhile, the Council has continued to expand the range of anti-discrimination laws the commission is charged with enforcing.
“The commission is in crisis,” Rebekah Cook-Mack, staff attorney at the nonprofit Legal Aid Society’s Employment Law Unit, told councilmembers at a budget hearing on Friday. “Just a handful of attorneys cannot be expected to enforce the strongest human rights law in the county.”
Agency officials who testified at the hearing disputed the contention that the commission was underfunded, presenting data indicating it was acting with greater efficiency.
The proposed funding cut comes as Adams has reversed budget cuts for a host of agencies, citing better-than-projected tax revenues and forecasts. Still, the administration maintains that more savings are needed to address fiscal challenges ahead.
The city’s Human Rights Law was passed in 1965 and is more comprehensive than federal and many states’ discrimination protections. It bars discrimination in…
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