New York City Health + Hospitals initially experienced some challenges with staffing and supply shortages and capacity limitations. As the pandemic unfolded, the agency assumed a significant role in planning for and responding to New York City’s public health emergency, launched the largest test and trace program in the country and implemented a vaccine program. The agency managed financially early in the pandemic due to the receipt of federal COVID-19 relief funding but, with the rise of new variants and subsequent increase in hospitalizations, costs continue to grow.

The pandemic impacted the delivery of some core public health services as agency resources were shifted to the COVID-19 response and fewer people sought health care. Responding to the mental health needs of people impacted by the pandemic, the Mayor launched Mental Health for All, a comprehensive website and public education campaign that coordinates mental health resources across City agencies, including the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

The pandemic has disrupted the provision of services to students and precipitated declines in enrollment at CUNY, as in most education systems. CUNY received more than $1.5 billion in federal aid across three federal relief packages to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic, including a minimum of $634 million which must be provided directly to students. Only $386 million of the total remains to be allocated in fiscal years 2022 and 2023.

Extraordinary emergency federal aid eliminated the most serious potential fiscal impacts of the pandemic. However, school closures, the necessary integration of remote learning, and the inability to provide in-person supplemental services to students have disrupted two consecutive school years, with significant negative impacts on student learning outcomes.

New York City’s FY 2023 Budget and April Financial Plan shows the city has benefited from stronger-than-anticipated tax collections, outsized federal grant revenue from relief programs, savings in pension contributions from extraordinary asset gains in FY 2021, and announced additional savings programs, including significant vacancy reductions. However, better-than-projected fiscal performance may be short-lived amid inflation, geopolitical tension and supply chain issues.

New York City lags the rest of the State and the nation in restoring pandemic job losses and in rebounding to pre-pandemic levels of unemployment. The recovery has also been uneven, with high-wage economic sectors generally faring better than low-wage sectors. This report aims to understand the main differences in labor force participation among the City’s workers and the reasons for the City’s slow recovery when compared to rest of the State and the nation.

For State Fiscal Year (SFY) 2021-22, agencies paid vendors $1,005,376 in interest, a decrease of $445,842 (approximately 31 percent) from SFY 2020-21.

The New York State Minority- and Women-Owned Business Enterprise (MWBE) Asset Management and Financial Institution Strategy (Chapter 171, Laws of 2010) was enacted to codify and replicate best practices for providing MWBEs that are asset managers, investment banks and financial and professional service providers with the opportunity to offer services to fiduciary-controlled entities established by New York State law.