Slow Post-Sandy Spending Leaves NYC Vulnerable: Comptroller

NEW YORK — New York City has been slow to spend federal money meant to help it recover from Superstorm Sandy as the threat of such destructive storms has only grown, City Comptroller Scott Stringer says.

The city had spent just 54% of the $14.7 billion in available federal funding for post-Sandy recovery and resiliency efforts as of March 31, according to a report Stringer's office released Thursday.

Spending has lagged even more within specific agencies, the comptroller's office says. The New York City Housing Authority has shelled out about 41% of the $3.1 billion in federal funds allocated to it, while the Health and Hospitals Corporation has only spent about 20% of its $1.8 billion, the report shows.

While he blamed federal bureaucracy for hampering the flow of cash, Stringer said the figures reveal a lack of urgency in the city's efforts to protect itself from the threat of climate change, which could make devastating storms like Sandy more frequent.

"Across the board, our current approach is too slow," Stringer, a Democrat, said at a news conference near Lower Manhattan's South Street Seaport. "We have begun to accept that projects cannot or will not move."

But Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration says there's not a lag in spending, as the bulk of the federal money wasn't available until 2015 and the city isn't expected to spend all of it for years.

"We are on track to meet all federal deadlines and we are spending our federal recovery funds faster than the national average," Jainey Bavishi, the director of the Mayor’s Office of Resiliency, said in a statement.

Superstorm Sandy killed more than 40 people and caused $19 billion in damage when it struck the city in October 2012.

The federal government stepped in to help after the storm — the Federal Emergency Management Agency gave the city $10.5 billion in grants and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development allocated about $4.2 billion more, according to Stringer's report.

The city has spent just 43.9% of the FEMA money, which was meant for post-Sandy repairs to infrastructure and city assets, the report says. While it's laid out almost 80% of the available HUD funds, the city has spent just $66 million of $473 million available from the feds for big projects to shore up the city's coast, such as the East Side Coastal Resiliency plan, Stringer's office found.

Red tape has held up the spending, Stringer's office says — the city has to conduct more than 12,800 environmental reviews to access the HUD money and had to produce 100 million pages of documents to get reimbursed for its Rapid Repair program.

While the feds should disburse the dollars more efficiently, City Hall must do its part and "push every agency to spend that money now," Stringer said.

De Blasio, a Democrat, has put forward a $20 billion plan to prepare the city for future big storms, and just last month he unveiled a $14 billion plan to cut emissions in the city 30% by 2030. But Stringer argued elected officials focus too much on the distant future when it comes to fighting climate change.

"You have about 10 years before we can't reverse this," Stringer said. "I fault no one thinking about 2050, but I think the climate gods are saying to us, 'We're giving you this much time left, so use that time wisely. Spend the money.'"

The de Blasio administration stood by its plans to protect the city from climate change as well as the pace of its post-Sandy spending.

While recipients of HUD disaster recovery money nationwide spend down 72% of their funding by the end of the sixth year after it becomes available, the city has spent down 76% of its HUD funds in the six and a half years since the storm itself, according to the Mayor's Office of Resiliency.

The city has a slate of resiliency projects in the works, including a $10 billion plan to build about two blocks of land into the East River in Lower Manhattan.

"The risks posed to New Yorkers by climate change are real, they are severe, and we are acting with unparalleled urgency to address them, especially in our most vulnerable communities," Bavishi said.