FY 2027 Preliminary Budget Hearing

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Little finger. Heat. Hey. Heat.

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Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the New York City Council hearing for the Committee on Consumer and Worker Protection. At this time, I would like to remind everyone to please silence all devices and at no point may you approach the dais. If you want to testify at today's hearing, please see a sergeant-at-arms at the back of the room to fill out a testimony slip. Chair, we are ready to begin.

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Good morning everyone and welcome to the 2027 fiscal budget hearing. My name is Harvey Epstein and for folks that do not know me, I am honored and privileged to chair the Committee on Consumer and Worker Protection. I am really glad that I have the commissioner here and the staff. I want to thank my colleagues CM Ossé and CM Hanks for joining us today. We are going to really review the budget process and look over these budget items. The DCWP budget we have seen today is 74.7 million, about 38 million in personnel expenses, supporting 484 budget staffers. A slight decrease from fiscal year 26 budget, which was 75.1 million, and also 38.6 million for other personal expenses.

There are a lot of topics we are going to be discussing today, hopefully with the panel here and the people who are testifying, around the ability for this department to seek restitution for workers and protections for consumers. We will talk about the vacancy rates in the agency and what is happening there, and how important the work that this agency does is in providing financial support and other support for people in this community. It is really critical that we understand how we can be helpful to the agency to make sure that it really connects up with consumers.

I want to thank the work that you have done so far. It has only been a little over two months since you have been in this role and I know the commission has done a lot of work to advance the rights of workers and consumers. I really look forward to robust engagement here on this process. I want to thank the committee staff, the finance division, Glenn Martini, Dan Coupe, Chimo Oboruri, and the legislative division, Sarah Swan and Natalie Meltzer, for their work, as well as my team, to help this hearing happen today. I would like to ask the committee counsel to please swear in the members of the administration.

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Good morning.

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Thank you, Chair Epstein, and thank you members of the Committee on Consumer and Worker Protection. My name is Sam Lavine, commissioner of the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. Today I am joined by our general counsel, Mike Tiger, and my chief of staff, Carlos Ortiz, and our deputy commissioner of the Office of Labor Policy and Standards, Elizabeth Wagner. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today before this committee to testify on the critical work of our agency and its budget for fiscal year 2027. DCWP is the nation's leading municipal enforcement agency charged with delivering economic justice. DCWP leverages its authority to bring New Yorkers real economic relief and protect them from predatory, deceptive, and unconscionable practices that violate their rights as consumers and workers. This includes pioneering cutting-edge protections such as the City's consumer protection law, protected time off law, fair work week law, and delivery worker laws, including the minimum pay rate for delivery workers. Through licensing more than 45,000 businesses in over 45 industries, DCWP ensures fair competition and a level playing field for responsible businesses that are an integral part of New York City's vibrant communities.

DCWP also provides essential services such as free tax preparation for individuals and families as well as tax prep services for self-employed workers and small businesses and one-on-one financial counseling to ensure that New Yorkers keep more of what they earn and can plan for their futures. We are committed to making sure New York City is a fairer and more affordable place to live.

I am incredibly honored to be entrusted with leading DCWP in its next chapter under Mayor Mamdani's administration. Under my tenure, I promise that DCWP will be a champion for New Yorkers and our mission to deliver economic justice to consumers and workers across our city will be stronger than ever. I look forward to being a close partner with this Council and I thank you for your work passing historic legislation and supporting the work of our department. Today, I will provide the committee with a fiscal overview of our agency, our successes over the past year, and our path forward continuing to build a fairer and more affordable city for all.

Starting by talking about our budget for fiscal year 2027, DCWP's preliminary budget is approximately $73.4 million with an authorized headcount of 484 and an active headcount of 425. Of this active headcount, only 387 are actually dedicated to DCWP's work. Last year, our team conducted more than 52,000 inspections and 1,230 investigations on behalf of consumers and workers, securing 47.5 million in real economic relief for New Yorkers. Our financial empowerment centers helped nearly 10,000 clients with free one-on-one financial counseling and our NYC free tax prep program completed more than 110,000 tax returns for New Yorkers. We are beyond proud of the work that we have accomplished this past year and with Mayor Mamdani standing beside us, we are looking forward to being able to accomplish even more for the City of New York.

Since our landmark consumer protection law was passed more than half a century ago, we have used our authority to safeguard the rights of New York City consumers and have focused our efforts on securing economic relief, protecting New Yorkers from deceptive and unconscionable business practices, and ensuring that New York City is a fair marketplace for all businesses who comply with the law. Last year alone, DCWP returned more than $3 million to New York City consumers. We are continuing this work aggressively. Just this year, we have announced major lawsuits against businesses exploiting and cheating New Yorkers, seeking millions in penalties and restitution for aggrieved consumers. Our case against Extraspace takes on the business for their false advertising, bait and switch tactics, and clear violations of our consumer protection law, for which we are seeking at least $5 million in penalties and restitution. We are also seeking nearly $20 million from Radiant Solar for its deceptive and illegal schemes that drove up utility costs for New York consumers. Finally, we have taken legal actions against three major employment agencies, CMP, Golden Rose, and Elanes, for systematically exploiting economically vulnerable New Yorkers with illegal advance fees. This action has already led to almost a million dollars in restitution for New York job seekers so that they can feed and house their families. We are going to continue this work.

In the last year, as the Council knows, our mandate grew and we worked to establish new and innovative protections for consumers across the five boroughs. Last June, we implemented CM Ossé's historic Fair Act, banning costly broker fees and ensuring prospective tenants have clarity on other fees related to the apartment rental.

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I agree, Council member.

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We also implemented Speaker Menon's Safe Hotels Act, creating stronger standards for consumers and workers at hotels. This implementation highlighted the efficiency of our licensing customer service, with licenses being approved in only two days and in-person wait times being an average of only four minutes. In support of small businesses, we worked with Speaker Menon on the announcement of a DCWP license reform package which eases regulatory burdens and modernizes requirements for small businesses across the city. We advocated strongly in favor of the passage of the street vendor reform package, allowing more of our city's smallest businesses to operate in compliance with city laws.

In the Mamdani administration, DCWP has already taken aggressive and innovative measures to leverage our authority to ensure that New Yorkers have a fierce protector in city government. Under this mayor, we announced the adoption of the strongest prohibition on hotel junk fees in the United States, which will protect New Yorkers traveling outside the city and those visiting our city from facing unexpected and costly fees when traveling. Just last month, we announced the publication of the Stopping Harassment and Intimidation and Ensuring Lawful Debt Collection Rule, the Shield Rule. A new debt collection rule that provides New Yorkers with the nation's strongest protections against debt collector harassment. That rule far surpasses the protections afforded by federal regulations and delivers first-in-the-nation innovative protections related to the collection of medical debt.

In this new era of accountability, we will go further than ever before to crack down on deceptive predatory corporate practices like junk fees and onerous subscription traps. Predatory industries have been put on notice: comply with the laws of New York City, or face consequences. Just yesterday, Deputy Mayor Sue officially launched the city's junk fee task force, which we are co-chairing, and we are excited about the potential to develop more groundbreaking policy to stop these practices that are directly undermining affordability for New Yorkers. Mayor Mamdani's rental ripoff hearings have been a major step in identifying the key issues affecting renters in our city, including onerous and costly fees such as the broker fees that CM Ossé targeted with the FARE Act. This is all to say that we are here to deliver economic relief for consumers who have been wronged, and we have sent a clear message that preying on New Yorkers will come with severe consequences.

I also want to talk about our groundbreaking worker justice initiatives. DCWP has been and will continue to be here to ensure that workers across the city can come to our office and that we can set the standards for worker rights and labor standards across the United States. Our cutting-edge worker protection laws not only establish greater stability in workers' schedules, incomes and employment, but also ensure that workers are treated fairly and with dignity. When companies violate workers' rights, we prioritize monetary relief for workers and hold employers accountable to the fullest extent of the law.

Last year was a historic year for our worker protection efforts. With this committee, we passed laws to strengthen existing protections, and we delivered a record-breaking $44.4 million in restitution to more than 24,000 workers through enforcement of our cornerstone workplace protection laws. This includes the biggest worker protection case in New York City history, a landmark $38.9 million settlement against Starbucks for violations of our fair work week law. As you all know, DCWP is a national leader in developing and implementing cutting-edge protections to raise labor standards for workers across industries.

In 2025, we strengthened our cornerstone workplace laws while advocating for protections in new industries. With the help of CM Nurse, CM Gutiérrez and CM Abreu, we expanded our delivery worker laws, strengthening protections relating to tipping and pay transparency, and expanding the minimum pay rate to grocery delivery workers and other existing protections to all contracted delivery workers. We also worked closely with CM Krishnan to pass much-needed deactivation protections for delivery workers and for-hire vehicle drivers, securing stability and employment for tens of thousands of hardworking New Yorkers. With the help of labor partners and CM Hudson, we fought to enact the Alain Etien Safety and Security Act, which will provide security guards that help keep us safe each and every day with better pay and benefit standards. Just last month, our strengthened protected time off law went into effect for 4.3 million New York City workers, requiring an additional 32 hours of unpaid time and expanding the reasons that employees can take time off, including child care, workplace violations, public benefits hearings and more. The law as well as our February benchmark report represents a standard for worker rights and stable schedules that the rest of the nation can look to as a model.

This is just the beginning. DCWP has already made great strides in 2026, taking on businesses and major corporations that exploit their workers. We recently announced a major win against a creative production company, Splashlight, for violations of our Freelance is Not Free Act, where we secured $500,000 for freelance workers who were cheated of their hard-earned payments. At the start of the year, we released a report that revealed the corporate greed of businesses like DoorDash and Uber exploiting and cheating their workers out of $550 million with design tricks that made it harder for customers to tip. In January, we announced a lawsuit against the delivery app MotoClip for egregious violations of the delivery worker laws. Through our team's efforts, we were able to get thousands of wrongfully deactivated delivery workers their jobs back and we secured nearly $5 million in restitution.

But we are not stopping there, because thanks to the City Council, DCWP will be delivering even more for workers in the months and years to come. We are working to implement laws that expand worker protections and improve labor standards for workers. None of this could have been achieved without the relentless efforts of workers, advocates and this Council. DCWP looks forward to these continued partnerships and doing even more this year.

We are also committed to setting New Yorkers up for financial success. Over the course of the past two decades, DCWP has been committed to supporting New Yorkers across the city by helping them reach their financial goals. Our financial empowerment work has impacted hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers and their families through vital research, educational resources and direct services that help them take control of their financial health. As part of the affordability agenda, we want to help ensure that New Yorkers are able to keep more of their hard-earned money and are not being ripped off by junk fees and other exploitative conduct.

Each year, New York City Free Tax Prep saves New Yorkers tens of millions of dollars in tax prep fees for expensive paid filing services while ensuring New Yorkers can keep the entirety of their tax refund. DCWP's trusted providers across 141 tax prep sites provide free professional tax preparation services to thousands of New Yorkers. Last year, our program helped file more than 110,000 tax returns through NYC Free Tax Prep, saving clients nearly $40 million in preparation fees and maximizing their refunds and access to valuable credits like the earned income and child tax credits. This year, we are aiming to grow these savings all while cracking down on exorbitant charges and deceptive practices that too often characterize the tax industry. We have already cracked down on predatory tax preparers who use junk fees and deceptive practices to exploit the people of the city. We are accelerating enforcement, deploying inspectors across the city to ensure tax preparers are following the law. New Yorkers can say goodbye to fees without sacrificing quality by using NYC Free Tax Prep. We will ensure that you can claim every credit you are entitled to.

We are also very proud of our financial empowerment centers which offer New Yorkers free, confidential one-on-one financial counseling sessions with trained financial counselors. These sessions help individuals and families achieve their financial goals and make a huge difference for households by addressing savings, banking, credit and debt, including student loan debt and much more. Since their inception, financial empowerment centers have served nearly 100,000 clients, increasing their savings by a total of $15.4 million and reducing their debt by more than $130 million. In 2025, we expanded our financial empowerment centers to eight New York City Health and Hospitals and MetroPlus Health sites, giving us the opportunity to serve even more New Yorkers and provide vital resources to assist constituents in managing their money amidst the affordability crisis we are all struggling with.

We also announced our financial literacy for youth initiative, expanding financial and consumer education to the youth and families of our city and helping to set them up for success. Through this initiative, we will bring financial educators to New York City public schools and youth-serving programs, developing a financially healthy environment for students and their families.

Let me conclude with this. The Mamdani administration has made clear that more than ever before, DCWP is committed to delivering economic justice for all New Yorkers and making New York City a fairer, more affordable place to live and work. We will protect New Yorkers by unleashing consumer protections against corporate greed, strengthening cornerstone protections for workers and bringing economic relief and financial health to New Yorkers and their families. DCWP wants New Yorkers to know with full confidence that whether you are a worker, a consumer or a household looking to improve your financial health, you have a champion and a passionate ally in city government.

I would like to express my sincere appreciation once again for the opportunity to testify today and for the incredible work that DCWP does every day. We are eager to carry forward the torch of Mayor Mamdani's affordability agenda. We look forward to partnering with you all in this new era of economic justice for the people of New York City. Lastly, I would like to thank my team at my side and behind me for the support they have shown me from the moment I stepped into this role just a couple of months ago. In short order, our team has taken major steps to redouble our efforts to protect workers and consumers from exploitation and to bring economic relief to countless New Yorkers across our city. As the administration moves forward with an ambitious vision for economic justice, I am confident that together we will transform the city into one that is fairer, more affordable and more just. I thank you and I look forward to answering your questions today.

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Thank you very much. I want to acknowledge that CM Brewer and CM Lee have joined us. CM Ariola is on Zoom. All right. Thank you. I know my colleagues have a lot of questions, so I just want to take a few off the top. I have heard from the mayor numerous times over the last three months that we were going to double the budget of DCWP to try to expand its resources and its reach, and I am wondering over what time frame you expect that doubling to happen and when we will see anything in relationship to that.

Well, thank you, Chair Epstein, and thank you for your steadfast support for our work, and congratulations of course on chairing this committee. Mayor Mamdani did make that commitment and I can tell you we are in ongoing conversations with the mayor and with City Hall about our needs for the coming year. It is absolutely the case that the Council has passed groundbreaking new laws that we are charged with enforcing. OMB has worked with us to identify significant new needs in order to enforce those laws. In terms of the actual timeline, those conversations are ongoing, but we know that the mayor inherited a massive fiscal crisis from Eric Adams and there really is an all-hands-on-deck effort to try to address that while continuing to fulfill the mandate that we have been charged with.

So the answer is it is unclear, but I know we have a lot of needs and we can go through all those today. It is a little disappointing to see a budget that is a reduction from what the actual budget was from last year, and potentially a reduction in your headcount. Is there something within DCWP that determines that you need less staffing than you needed in the past?

Well, it was a preliminary budget as you know, Chair Epstein, and conversations remain ongoing.

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with City Hall, with OMB. When the Council passed new groundbreaking laws like for higher vehicle deactivation, OMB did identify significant new needs for DCWP to make those laws a success. >> You say new needs, you mean additional staffing support. >> Exactly. Additional staffing support. And those conversations remain ongoing for the exec plan to ensure that we can enforce those laws effectively. >> Right. And I know you have listed off 10 or 12 different things where it is going to require additional needs of staffing. I just want to flag that as a large concern that we have, that we are giving you a lot of authority and I am not sure the staffing levels meet those needs based on what I am hearing today. >> I can... go ahead. >> No. So your headcount is 484, but the actual active headcount is 425. Can you explain the difference there? >> Yeah, essentially, Council Member, what is going on is a number of our lines — I believe it is about 58 of our authorized lines, 38 of our active lines and 20 of our vacancies — are actually funded by DOH. We do not control those lines. They work with our licensing centers. But those lines are not in consumer and worker protection. So 387 is your actual in consumer and worker protection, people actually working in your agency. >> I believe the active... Carlos, do you want to fill in right now? >> That is... let me confirm one moment. That is correct. 387 are dedicated to DCWP's work.

I think just to clarify, so it is 484 total authorized headcount for the agency. But as the commissioner mentioned, 58 of that authorized headcount is DOH funded lines. And then within those DOH funded lines there are 20 vacancies, which represents, if you put it all together, about 30% of our total vacancies as an agency. >> That is through DOH and they are funded through your agency. We receive an intracity grant to fund those 58 lines and they are responsible for DOH licensing and permitting. For example, food service establishments is one. That is their role at the agency. >> Right. And the 387 from the 425... >> Those 387, those are the active headcount. >> That is a team effort here. I believe 387 is as of January 2026. For FY27 the authorized headcount will be 484. For FY26 the authorized headcount was 475. So we are talking about different time frames here. >> So continuing into the future fiscally, you are still saying of the headcount who are going to be working on DCWP work, what number will that be based on the proposed budget? Currently the preliminary budget has us at 387 active for working on these issues, on DCWP work. 387. And of that, can you break down how many of them are forward-facing, consumer-facing individuals? Go ahead. >> Yeah, give me just a moment, Council Member, to get you those numbers.

So essentially, just to give you a little sample of it, our general counsel, which handles a lot of our consumer protection work but also is legal counsel for us, has a total of 83 active... let me see. Given your question, OPS, which is the worker protection unit... >> 83 active lawyers? >> No, it is a whole suite of different workers. Like our consumer services... sorry about that, Chair. It is a whole bunch of different types of staff. For example, our consumer services unit, which is the intake and mediation arm of the agency, all non-lawyers. >> All competitive civil servants. That is within the general counsel division. So that is a couple dozen people. And we have other functions. There are a couple dozen lawyers within the general counsel division that are doing consumer protection, enforcement and legal counsel work for the agency. >> And in terms of lawyers, how many lawyers do you have who are working inside the agency? >> In terms of lawyers who can bring cases to get money back to workers and consumers, it is shockingly low. We have about 20 or so. >> I think if you combined the enforcement lawyers in OPS and the enforcement lawyers doing consumer protection work in the general counsel division, it is a little over 40 attorneys. >> And just in the general counsel's office, how many? >> I think between 20 and 25. So you have 20 to 25 lawyers to represent everyone who has come to you across New York City on any affirmative litigation you are doing.

Sorry, to confirm: it is 20 to 25 lawyers for consumer protection and 18 attorneys for worker protection. So we are talking about 40 total, approximately, across these two areas. Now, we have other attorneys in our agency. They are not working in these enforcement efforts. They have other roles such as legal counsel working on contracts. So that is the breakdown. I am also happy to give you a breakdown of each division if that is helpful. >> I would find it helpful, because we just talked a lot. I think probably just on CM Ossé's Fair Act, you might need 20 to 25 lawyers just on the cases that may need to be brought on that one provision of law alone. And so I want to flag this: consumer protection issues, not to mention all the worker rights issues that we are talking about, feels to me — as someone who was at one point a practicing lawyer — that when we have eight and a half million New Yorkers and we are seeing hundreds of thousands of potential complaints, we are putting your agency in a very difficult position to be able to represent New Yorkers to their fullest extent. I know you wanted to add something. No. Okay.

Well, if I could — I appreciate the sentiment around that because I think everybody here believes that the work of this agency is absolutely critical for New Yorkers. And I think it speaks volumes to what particularly Mike and Liz and other folks at our agency have been able to do with these resources, the concrete outcomes in tens of millions of dollars in economic relief. I think it is why I believe that pound-for-pound this is the best agency in the city, and with more resources we could always do more. >> And if I may add very briefly, Chair, I have done consumer protection enforcement at the state level and at the federal level my whole career. I am just in my third month here at DCWP. This is the leanest enforcement operation I have ever seen. It is a tribute to Mike and Liz that we can deliver so much for the city, but there is no doubt we are lean and mean and we are stretched. There is no doubt about it. >> Right. I know CM Ossé has to leave soon, so I want to give an opportunity to weigh in with some questions.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Commissioner, for your testimony. I wanted to follow up on some questions I had the last time we had a hearing together. It is around ride share and delivery app services and surge charges. A concern that often comes up for constituents and New Yorkers broadly is that some ride share and delivery apps charge these surge charges that do not seem to make sense. New Yorkers are left in the dark on what fees they are actually paying when these apps implement these surge charges. Prices on apps like Uber, Lyft and DoorDash can vary from order to order. While this may be a TLC issue for ride share apps, I want to know if DCWP is working on anything to address this, especially anything regarding potential price gouging and fee transparency. >> Yeah, I think this is an excellent question, Council Member. What I will say is that my big fear is that what consumers are experiencing with Uber and Lyft — where they do not know how much something is going to cost, they get hidden fees, it changes throughout the day, and two people sitting in the same building going to the same destination end up with totally different prices — my worry is that this is the future of pricing, that what is happening at Uber and Lyft could happen in our grocery stores, our hardware stores, when we are shopping every day. So I can tell you what we are doing is leading the city's aggressive effort to crack down on junk fees. We had our first task force meeting yesterday.

We passed the hotel fee rule. We continue to work on that. We are sending warning letters. But I can tell you that we are also very interested in working internally on the next generation of pricing abuses. Whether that is dynamic pricing, where people walk into a grocery store and the cost of eggs rises as they go from one aisle to the next, or whether it is surveillance pricing, where companies are using our personal data to try to set prices as high as they can — the most that we are willing to pay. I think it is really critical that as the federal government essentially says to industry, "do whatever you want, we do not care, we are not going to bring law enforcement," that New York steps up and protects these basic principles: that New Yorkers should know how much something is going to cost before they pay. I think that is critical and if anything we have to go broader than Uber and Lyft, across the economy, to make sure these pricing abuses cannot become entrenched. >> I appreciate that answer. My office is working on drafting legislation around transparency around surge pricing as well as regulation around surge pricing. So we would love to work with you all on what that legislation looks like and would love your support in potentially getting it passed.

Another question that I want to ask is a more complex issue, but deed theft is a prevalent issue in my district and across the city, where there is a high number of Black homeowners who are preyed upon by different companies that aim to steal their deeds. One of the ways that deed theft happens is through individualized targeted outreach with predatory intentions. These are bad actors posing as real estate or financial experts, and vulnerable homeowners like seniors or those facing financial hardships and liens often rely on these experts and as a result can lose the deeds to their properties. And while deed theft is more commonly seen as a Department of Finance issue, in my view it falls in the category of malicious business. What is DCWP doing, if anything, to hold these bad actors in real estate and financial scams accountable? And how can constituents take action with DCWP when they are approached by a deed theft scammer?

I could not agree more, Council Member. I think if anything "malicious business" understates what the problem is, especially the type of scheme you are describing. What I will say is we are very engaged in helping people protect their homes and protect their equity. We just brought a major case against Radiant Solar, which was a company that was ripping off New Yorkers around solar installation. When we see instances of deed theft — and I will have Mike add to this, our general counsel add to this — the fact of the matter is it is not just a Department of Finance issue, it is often a criminal issue. At the end of the day, we are a civil law enforcement agency, but we routinely refer cases to district attorneys for criminal prosecution. My general view is that given the egregiousness of the kind of conduct you are describing, the best approach is to put these people behind bars. But I will let Mike add to that. >> That is right. There are a lot of different flavors of what is classified as deed theft as you are referring to, Council Member. So I think we can approach this in a collaborative effort across all the different enforcement agencies. As a first step, you can always reach out to us. And as the commissioner mentioned, we have relationships that we have cultivated with the five district attorneys' offices. So if we think this is something that is best for criminal enforcement, we can talk to the economic crimes bureaus at these different district attorneys' offices.

We do not want to give people the runaround. We want to actually be able to work with your offices to help your constituents find out what the best route is. If it is something that is best for us to enforce under our consumer protection law, our deceptive business practices law, we want those types of complaints and we encourage you and your colleagues to submit complaints online or through 311. We want to engage with what you are seeing. >> Chair, can I ask one more question? I promise it will be brief. I want to thank you, Commissioner, and your agency for your commitment to upholding the Fair Act and ensuring that the bad actors that are landlords and brokers are held accountable. Since the passage of the Fair Act, broker fee complaints have dropped from 50 complaints a week to 25 a week. But what can your agency do to ensure those numbers continue to decrease, and what resources does DCWP need to do that work and how much will it cost? We are here to advocate for more funding for you, so I know you could do a lot more with more, but any specifics would be really helpful for us. >> Well, I appreciate that, Council Member. I want to start by reiterating what you said. Complaints have fallen. Far fewer complaints we get actually involve broker fees. Many of the complaints we get are from New Yorkers warning us that they have heard about a friend who has been charged a broker fee, or things like that.

I really believe that this law is making a meaningful difference in increasing the accessibility of housing without any... >> I told you guys it was a great bill. I told you it was a great bill. >> Right. And many of the predictions of doom have certainly not come to pass. If anything, this is making... you know, I paid a massive broker fee when I moved into my most recent apartment. Many New Yorkers cannot afford to come up with 15% of their rent.

In terms of what we are doing, we know that there are brokers out there trying to evade the protections of the Fair Act, whether it is saying to renters, "we are not going to advertise any broker fees, but come to our office, we are going to make a deal." We are very concerned about essentially black market, off-the-radar transactions. That is one reason we are making a concerted effort to hear from more renters — not only by driving complaints from 311 into our office, which as you know we are doing, but we are now doing rental ripoff hearings. We just did our third. We have another in Manhattan next week. We are hearing from many many tenants about all sorts of, for lack of a better word, shady practices. We are very committed to working with you, whether that means clarifying the scope of the Fair Act to close these loopholes — perhaps it might require amendment, and we would work with you on that — or perhaps it requires continuing the 50-plus cases we have open right now and sending a message to these landlords and brokers that this conduct is unacceptable. All options are on the table. >> You asked about resources. I am trying to move quickly. Do you want to talk about that? >> I was going to say one thing about the rental ripoff hearings, that under the Mamdani administration also... I know we have a lot of other questions up here, so you can... >> Well, we have some legislative ideas too that we are happy to share. >> Thank you. Thank you.

And more resources would allow us to bring more enforcement. >> Of course. Thank you, Commissioner.

I want to... CM Hanks, I know she has got some questions, so I will turn to her now. >> Thank you, Chair, and thank you, CM Ossé. Happy belated birthday, and you had a profoundly amazing bill that we passed. Thank you so much, Commissioner, for being here. The work that you are doing is supremely important. I am always here to rally for the fifth borough. So we just want to ask a few questions. DCWP's work spans inspections, enforcement actions, complaint mediation, restitution for harmed consumers and workers. And in Staten Island this role is especially significant due to the borough's reliance on small businesses and service sector employment, where issues like wage theft, deceptive contracting and predatory financial practices may be harder to detect due to lower density and fewer enforcement touch points. I really appreciate, as part of your testimony, letting us know how many enforcement officers there are. And I know it is 8 million people and I am asking about Staten Island, but we do want to know: what specific consumer protection and worker rights violations are most reported in Staten Island, how does DCWP tailor enforcement on those issues, and how does DCWP ensure that Staten Island residents are aware of their rights under laws such as paid safe and sick leave and fair work week protections? >> Well, thank you, Council Member, for that question. Let me just start by saying my colleague is going to look into pulling up the complaint numbers in response.

But I just want to make clear: we are about protecting consumers and workers, but protecting small businesses is a key part of our mission too. Whether it is making sure our licenses are easy to obtain, whether it is reducing fines and fees, whether it is educating small businesses about the laws they need to follow, whether it is ensuring a level playing field for small businesses. And I would just add, Council Member — and I bet you have heard about this all over Staten Island — small businesses are being scammed too. Small businesses are being defrauded too. They are being ripped off too. The reality is our consumer protection law is limited in that regard. But small businesses need a champion in city government, and I am very happy that my former colleague, first deputy Kenny Maniah, is now commissioner of small business services. That is what we are trying to do every day and we see it as core to our mission. Carlos can talk about some of our complaint data. >> I would say that we do have specific efforts in Staten Island with respect to outreach. Our targets are for at least 100 outreach events in Staten Island per year. We also do small business outreach in the borough every year as well. This includes small business walks with local council members to meet one-on-one with businesses.

The last piece I would mention, because it came to me very directly — your point about low-density boroughs and how we could address, for example, worker rights issues there — one manner is just through our proactive investigation posture when we receive a complaint. When we receive a worker rights complaint about a business, we will make sure we take a look at the entire business and also if they have locations in other parts of the borough or locations across the city. It is a way for us to maximize our efficiencies and effectiveness of resources, to make sure that even if it is a low-density borough where we have received a complaint, we are able to really spread the scope of that investigation. >> Let me just say, as a proud Curtis High School alum... >> Yeah, go Warriors. I just... >> I brought him here just for you, Council Member. >> I would say that we take this very seriously. When we are looking at complaints, we are looking at all five boroughs. We want to make sure that we are spreading love all over the city and making sure that we are using our resources as much as we can across the entire city. And we have a rental ripoff hearing coming up at IS-49 in a couple of weeks. >> Yeah, so we definitely look forward to hearing from Staten Islanders about what is going on on the ground at that hearing. >> Thank you so much and thank you, Chair.

Thank you. Now I will turn it to CM Lee. >> Hi. Good afternoon. Okay, it is afternoon. I am so sorry — I was in such a brain fog yesterday when I saw you guys walking in. I did not give you your due flowers. I am very apologetic, but congrats, Commissioner Lavine. And of course, we love Carlos and the rest of the staff. Thank you so much. And just really quickly, because I was going back to the numbers — I was really trying to follow along as Chair Epstein was going through the vacancies and the positions. So on our side, we had 63 vacancies and 421 active as of end of January, but you said the most recent numbers are 4...

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387 active.

CM staff, go ahead. I can take that. I think what we were trying to communicate, and perhaps it was not successful, was the amount of staff dedicated to DCWP work and the amount of staff dedicated to DOH work.

Right.

So I think your numbers are for the most part accurate for the time period that you are taking in.

Okay.

Overall, if I can try to be clear from our end, it is 484 is the authorized headcount. We have approximately 60 vacancies. Yes. And then from that 484, 58 of those lines are DOH.

Okay. And just out of curiosity, because I know that even in the programs we had where we ran the senior centers, the DOH piece for the food handlers license and all these other things were a big holdup in moving things forward. So just curious to hear how your conversations have been going with DOH in terms of timeline, how long it takes to get those through and how that impacts maybe some of your work.

Well, I would say I think I would have to circle back with my colleagues at DOH in terms of their metrics. I know for us our wait times are about four minutes for each client and then additionally two days for processing applications. I think the policy of putting all these agent licensing functions within one agency is from a Giuliani era, really. I think there are some inefficiencies there, particularly when it comes even from a constituent perspective of who am I exactly interfacing with here. That said, we coordinate as much as we can with DOH to make sure that we are delivering as much as we can for New Yorkers.

Okay, great. Thank you. And then just switching gears a little bit to chief savings officers. So I am assuming that you still have the same 1.5% mandate in FY26 and 2.5% for FY27. I wanted to — I know the proposals are due tomorrow, but wondering if you could share some areas that are being evaluated.

Oh, I know we gave you more work, so that is the other issue too.

I appreciate it, Council Member. Our original chief savings officer is now the SBS commissioner, but we have a new chief savings officer. Our discussions with OMB and with City Hall are ongoing about those savings, so I do not want to get ahead of them, but I can tell you we have identified savings. There are no easy solutions here, Council Member. As it is a theme at our hearing, we are stretched very thin. But we were given that mandate and we are following it.

Where have those areas been? I am even curious because I feel like we have given you a lot of extra stuff on your plate. So just curious where the savings have been found.

Well, I can say generally, because again I do not want to get ahead of City Hall on this, but we are examining every contract we have. We are examining every corner of our org chart. We are examining every line. We are trying to find savings where we can. It is not easy. And again, when you hear our topline budget — and I am so glad you asked my chief of staff about DOH — it elides the fact that many of our lines are actually not in our control. So that cannot be touched by any of these savings. So it is a challenge for us, but we are working with City Hall to meet it.

Okay. And the services like enforcement and licensing that protect New Yorkers, will those be held harmless?

I hope so, Council Member. That is going to depend of course on — do you mean with the savings target specifically or with the exec plan and the budget for the coming year?

Right. Okay. And what efficiencies might DCWP implement to reduce costs while maintaining the enforcement levels, which I know you are looking at again?

Yeah, I can just say, Council Member, it is a challenge. We staff our cases very leanly. We have talked about how we can reduce our backlog, for example, of worker protection cases. We are certainly taking an aggressive posture with companies where we are saying we are not going to let negotiations drag on. If you do not give us the information we need and we believe the law is being broken, we are going to court. But going to court takes cost too. So I am not going to pretend it has been easy, Council Member, but again we are doing what we can and looking between the cushions.

I would add as well that over the past 10 years I believe we had a net headcount increase of approximately 10. So it speaks to the fact that throughout that time we have had to strategically readjust our resources. We have had to become leaner and more effective with what we have. It is something the agency has excelled at, based on the outcomes we put together. All that said, there are mandates coming. These mandates are super important to us and to our allies and we want to make sure that we are putting the best foot forward on those.

And hopefully you will find change and not old gum in the cushions like what my kids find. But every bit counts. Could I just ask one more question, Chair? Sorry.

So just on the revenue generation side, most of the revenue is obviously through fines and licensing. However, the expected revenue for FY27 is 1.3 million lower than it was at FY26 budget adoption and I just wanted to know what the reason was for that decrease and if the revenue might increase the need for expense cuts. And lastly, this is just a personal interest of mine: have you also looked into the possibility of using AI and tech to help with some of these fee collections and reducing outstanding penalties? I have been talking to folks that are doing this work in other municipalities and cities across the nation. So I was just wondering if that is something that you all are looking into as well.

So much there. I will try to keep it brief. Council Member, this is a really thoughtful question on revenue. I want to get back to you on the targets. The reality is we target conservatively and then generally exceed our targets. Certainly if we have litigation success this year we are likely to exceed our targets, but we will get back to you on that. I am glad you asked about AI and tech. This is something we do believe we can find more efficiencies by using more technology. That does require OTPS money to implement these systems. We have worked with OTI well in the past and they continue to support us. There are also permissions we need to use AI. But we absolutely could not do our minimum pay rate cases without the systems we have to track pay across different delivery apps. So implementing tech tools has already made our agency more efficient and we really do want to redouble that, but it takes money to save money.

Yeah. I would add too, to the commissioner's point, I know that leveraging data scientists in our investigations has really taken our work out of an analog era and I know with the commissioner we are already thinking about how we spread that idea to other parts of our agency and again going back to becoming lean and efficient.

Right. Yeah, I was joking with someone this morning — sometimes I feel like we are still operating on DOS. It is like old school.

I registered for this hearing on carbon paper, like yeah.

Awesome. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. CM Brewer.

Thank you very much. So, could you — I do not know that you have to do it now, but could you divide up: this is what the health inspector does, the hotel inspector, the vendor inspector — are they all cross-trained? Because you do not have that many. I mean, if you think of all the folks, you have so few to do all those jobs. So is it cross-training?

Yeah, thank you for the question, Council Member. They are cross-trained but I do not think every inspector is trained for every industry. So for example, we have 48 field enforcement staff, 48 inspectors essentially. Let me answer it this way. We have 14 for petroleum license qualification — we call that special enforcement. 24 for tobacco, which as you know is a major problem.

Very well.

Six for operations, but I know either one of you should weigh in.

That is correct. I would say that is the correct breakdown. And the 48 field inspectors are really the cross-trained ones. They are the ones out there doing patrols and responding to complaints.

So they could do vendors, they can do hotels, they can do...

Well, we no longer do vendor enforcement. Street enforcement has been moved over to...

So they can do hotels, they can do...

The 48 can do hotels. That is correct.

Or any of our licensed categories or any of these businesses enforcing for consumer protection laws.

Okay. Go ahead. And then 24 tobacco. I know that...

24 tobacco, which is partly funded by the state as well. And then as the commissioner mentioned, 14 for special enforcement.

Okay. And then six operations. What does operations mean?

Just general...

I believe that is processing the summons and...

Processing summons.

Yeah, just quality checking, making sure that things — because we issue these summonses, they go to OATH or...

Reporting and data analysis process. So just making sure everything is streamlined.

And only OATH or the Department of Finance knows if anybody pays their fees, right? Because nobody seems to pay.

Well, I mean — I am sorry. I did a report with IBO a while ago finding two billion unpaid. That was a few years ago. I am trying to get another report. So what I am saying is you do not know if people pay — that is up to OATH to adjudicate and then for...

Well, OATH issues the decision.

Correct, and then Finance is supposed to collect.

Well, we actually do some internal collections. We send out an initial letter and then if we do not get the penalties or the restitution paid through our internal collections process, we then work with the Law Department.

So Finance — because Finance for other agencies does the collection, but in your case you do the collection?

At least at the initial stage.

At the initial stage. Okay.

I am sorry, the Department of Finance does not do our collections directly.

Oh, that is interesting. Okay.

We collected approximately $16 million last calendar year.

$16 million. And do you know how much you did not collect? Or that is not...

No, we do not have that with us.

Could you let us know? Because I know you try. Okay, just...

The people who were in the cannabis cases, I do not think they paid a penny, just FYI.

The other issue was just on paid sick. I did not know what your numbers might be. That is obviously my bill. I care about it. You have done a great job. I did not know if you had a number for what has been paid on that or how many people have been...

Yeah, let...

...fought for not doing the right thing.

I appreciate that, Council Member. I will turn it over to your wonderful ops chief.

Yep. We sure do. So in calendar year 2025, we had 525 complaints. We were able to close 288 investigations and opened 305 investigations. In total we have collected $4.5 million for workers under the protected time off law or paid sick leave law and $47,000 in civil penalties.

Right. Thank you very much, Council Member. I would add that since you were able to successfully pass that bill, $34.6 million in fines and restitution has been delivered to over 77,000 New Yorkers.

Thank you. Just as long as de Blasio does not get credit, I am fine.

We will make sure.

I deserve the credit on that one.

The other question is there are a lot of — I guess on the list for the 48 would be those who are messing up the scheduling. That is still an ongoing issue. You know, when you get told that your schedule is changing quickly, that is a law that we passed. So I am just wondering, is that also something that is a constant challenge? Because I do get a lot of complaints still about people's scheduling. Go ahead.

Yeah, so the 48 staff are actually in our field enforcement division. It is the Office of Labor Policy and Standards that enforces the Fair Work Week law. We get a lot of complaints too. Our enforcement of that law is broader than ever. Many of the complaints we get are alleging issues that do not just affect one person, but affect the whole workforce. When we get a complaint like that, we open a workplace-wide investigation — often a citywide investigation — to look at every store under that corporate umbrella. We have had a great deal of success settling those cases and collecting money for workers. In calendar year 2025, we have collected $39 million just under the Fair Work Week law for workers, which we distributed to...

Does it send a message that they should not be doing it, or does it just continue? In other words, should it send a message?

Yeah, we definitely see compliance improvements. We have had some companies where we are then looking a second time because we get complaints, which is bad news and good news. The good news is it is better. It might not be perfect, but it improves. So we do think our enforcement is making an impact. There have also been independent researchers that have studied this and found that New York City, nationwide among Fair Work Week law jurisdictions, is doing the best in actually improving scheduling protections for fast food workers.

Congratulations. I know I still get complaints so I appreciate that. Just finally, with FIFA coming and the boats coming in July, that is going to be a lot of hotel challenges I assume. In other words, are we doing extra — maybe through NYC Tourism — so that people can complain? There will be a million visitors here, et cetera. You get the issue. So how do we handle their complaints, because they may not know what to do about complaining?

Yeah. Thank you, Council Member. As you know we are licensing hotels now. It has been a big part of our agenda to make sure not only that New Yorkers are not getting ripped off when they travel, but that people do not come to the City and find themselves getting ripped off.

And we will have many visitors. We hope...

Strongest in the nation hotel junk fee rule — you were there for the announcement. We announced that a couple months ago. We have the Safe Hotels Act to ensure there is no illegal subcontracting and to ensure the safety and cleanliness in the hotels. We continue to receive consumer complaints. Mike, do you want to talk a little bit about our additional efforts in the space?

No, I think you have hit the key points. I mean, we are always very attuned to the fact that we are going to get an influx of visitors here. We definitely care about making sure not just that New Yorkers are protected, but tourists coming to the City are protected. So first, as always, if you are hearing anything on the ground, please...

No, I am just saying, are you working through NYC Tourism so that they have this on their agenda? I mean, they have many issues on their agenda, but would they have this on their agenda?

Yes, we are in communication with New York City Tourism and we are also closely working with Hannah and HTC as well to leverage those communication channels with workers and consumers.

Okay. And then just finally, one more question. Seniors getting scammed.

I get these complaints all the time. I do not know if that is you or if that is FTC — in your old job and my mother-in-law's job — but I am just wondering, is that something that is on your radar or is that state and federal?

Oh, it is absolutely on our radar. In so many ways it should be Facebook's job. It should be Google's job. I mean, what drives me crazy...

The telephone too. The telephone.

Absolutely. You know what drives me crazy about this is reporting now suggests Facebook is earning 10% of its ad revenue from scams and they know it and they are not doing anything about it because federal law protects them from liability for scams perpetrated on their platform. So there are limits to how much state or even federal agencies can do here. But we are absolutely committed as part of our education efforts, our financial counseling efforts, our enforcement efforts — when we find fraud, we attack it. When it is criminal, as I was saying to CM Ossé, who is no longer here, we refer to our criminal partners. We work with the AG all the time. But candidly, Council Member, this problem has grown so massive.

Huge.

I mean, the number of complaints to the FTC emanating from social media primarily targeting older people went up something like 20-fold over the last decade.

No, you see it, you get it. They complain. They come into my office, they have been ripped off $19,000, $30,000, constantly.

Yeah, absolutely. And candidly, the upstream solution — the way you avoid playing whack-a-mole with this problem in my opinion — is education. Making sure people have the tools to avoid these scams. And the other is for social media platforms to take more responsibility.

Okay. Thank you.

On the education piece, last year we conducted 619 outreach events. My goal for this year is to get that to about 730. So we are aiming for about two events per day for the calendar year.

Thank you, CM Brewer. I want to acknowledge that CM Aldebol and CM Krishnan are with us, and CM Abreu, and I want to go to CM Aldebol for questions.

Yeah, I think you answered my question because I was going to ask you about your education efforts both on the consumer side and the worker protection side. You know, you cannot enforce laws if people do not know about them and do not know where to go to make a claim. So I wanted to know — and again we want to advocate for more staffing, certainly not only in the area of enforcement but the area of education, which is also extremely important if we want to enforce this legislation to protect workers and consumers — and particularly, to CM Brewer's point, a lot of seniors in my district are being affected by a multitude of scams, including deed theft. Are there plans to do more education, maybe working with the Department for the Aging, to ensure that seniors are being advised of their rights and of scammers?

This is a multi-part question, I know it is a lot. And whether or not you have a list of contractors who are known violators of the law, so that people know who not to contract with.

Thank you, Council Member. So approximately 620 events last year, reaching 75,000 New Yorkers. I think the breakdown is kind of half and half between consumer protection and worker protection. It is a small team — five people. I like to think they are the best outreach team in the City, though, because they burn a lot of shoe leather. Our model is to really plug in to community-based organizations and their ongoing meetings, membership meetings. Whenever you have a meeting, we are going to be there — as a way to get out there and be broad and deep with our outreach.

With respect to deed theft, we coordinate closely with the Department of Aging, for example, on their booklets that provide educational resources and referrals over to our financial empowerment centers. We also coordinate closely with HPD's homeowner help desk as well, which really helps address a lot of these deed theft issues too.

In the home improvement contractor space, I think we have done a lot of work over the past few years, and I can maybe toss it over to Mike about this — revitalizing how we disperse restitution through our trust funds and other enforcement work.

Yeah, we have a home improvement contractor trust fund that, as Carlos mentioned, we have revamped the operating rules under. So now we have a more streamlined process where you can get up to $20,000 in relief without having to file a case.

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And we also increase the cap if you do file a case in civil court, how much you can get from the trust fund. We also have a home improvement contractor wall of shame on our website. That is for repeat violators of unlicensed home improvement contracting. It is very important for consumers and we make that an educational point. We really try to get out to consumers that they should check our website, which has a license lookup function to see if the home improvement contractor they are considering hiring is licensed by us, because you get a lot more protections under the law if you hire a licensed home improvement contractor. So if you go to our website, you will see the most recent bad actors as far as unlicensed home improvement contracting. Just sort of responding to your question, Council Member, of like where are the bad actors? That is at least one sliver of the pie where we actually do have something on our website.

Thank you. And we are also joined by CM Banks on Zoom. I want to turn it over to CM Ossé.

Thank you, Chair. My question is, Commissioner, does the Mayor's Office of Management and Budget still have a two-in-one-out hiring requirement implemented for DCWP's hiring policies?

At the moment, yes, Council Member.

I thought they were supposed to be all gone. What happened? Why is DCWP being subject to this?

Well, we got savings targets by OMB. We are in discussions with OMB about those cuts. My understanding is if and when that is resolved, the two-for-one will be lifted. But Carlos, do you want to add more details on that process?

No, that is 100% correct, Commissioner. We are under two-for-one until we identify our savings targets.

I mean, I am shocked to hear that your agency is being subject to two-for-one, and I will tell you why. The Council has obviously passed a lot of legislation that you are going to be tasked with enforcing. For instance, I passed a package of bills on tipping transparency and pay transparency, something I have worked very closely with WJP on. I would imagine you need more resources to implement these laws. Is that correct? Or do you think you have the headcount necessary to implement those laws?

No, it is true, Council Member, that OMB identified the needs for your legislation and others with respect to how we can effectively implement these laws, and there are significant additional needs. I can go through them if that is helpful.

I mean, in addition to that, the Council also passed a slew of bills led by the street vendor project to expand licensing for street vendors. We expect those licenses to be out the door as soon as the law requires. And it sounds like this two-for-one hiring policy is severely limiting your ability to do your job. What is the ask that we need to make from this administration to help you do your job between now and exec?

Well, we are committed to full, robust implementation of the street vendor license expansion. I was proud that our administration reversed the previous administration's opposition to that bill. We were happy to see the Council override the veto. But it is the case, as you alluded to, that the fiscal impact statement for the license expansion identified 26 new lines that DCWP would need to implement it effectively. We are having ongoing conversations with OMB and City Hall about how those needs might be reflected in the exec plan. But whatever happens, we are committed to making this a success.

It is not whatever happens. You need the resources. So our job is to make sure that you have those resources. I would like to know how much money you need to do it.

Well, the fiscal impact statement put forward with the legislation identified 26 lines, 3.1 million in FY27, and 2.5 million in out years.

How many worker rights and consumer rights attorneys?

Just to clarify, that is for just that one bill. That is just for street vendor licenses.

26 for just street vendors, not to mention everything else that we did. Right?

Correct.

So what is the overall increase in staffing that you would need according to OMB to cover all the laws that we have passed?

If you include the laws that were passed in... 302 new lines.

302 new lines?

Yes, Chair. I think these fiscal impacts are available on City Legislation. We are happy to forward you the breakdown.

Is it your position that you have to enforce these laws?

Absolutely.

And is it also your position that you need the resources necessary to enforce these laws?

Yes. But I also want to be clear: we recognize the city is in a budget crisis. Whatever the allocation is, we are going to do our best to enforce these laws effectively.

I think we need DCWP to get the resources that you need. I know there are some limitations on what you can say here today. I have no limitations. I can say whatever I want. Sort of like Gale. No, I am just kidding. Gale always says what she wants. But seriously, we need to get you the resources that you need and we need to get all those lines that you need to do your job. The advocates in this room, from WJP to DRUM to the Laundry Workers Center and everyone else, we are committed to this issue and we want you to do your jobs. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member.

I just want to add that I think we would need a breakdown of where the need is for increased headcount. Like, how many lawyers do you need? How many education folks on the ground do you need? I am going to emphasize how important it is for workers and consumers and small businesses to be educated on what their rights are, where they can go to make a complaint and what resources are available to them, because the law is not going to be enforced if people do not know about it. So I would like to hear more about how much you need on the education side as well, to have a fully functioning agency that is going to be able to do its work appropriately.

Well, we appreciate that, Council Member. Certainly with respect to the laws that were passed, there are publicly available fiscal impact statements. I will give you a couple of the highlights. For-hire vehicle delivery deactivation was estimated to require 170 lines. Delivery worker deactivation, 34 lines. Street vendor license expansion, 26 lines. Delivery worker expansion, 14 lines, and on and on. I believe that these estimates do include the resources necessary to do outreach around these laws. But it is also the case that since these laws were passed, the mayor has issued significant executive orders charging DCWP, for example, with leading a citywide, whole-of-government crackdown on junk fees, directing DCWP to lead a crackdown on subscription traps and directing DCWP to co-organize the rent ripoff hearings. We are excited about this. We have never had a mayor, in my opinion, as relentlessly committed to consumer and worker protection. But the needs for our agency continue to grow, and that is reflected in all of our testimony today.

Thank you, CM Krishnan.

Thanks so much, Chair Epstein. Good to see you, Commissioner, First Deputy Commissioner and team, as always. I appreciate your work and our conversation so far about all we can do together for protecting our workers, small businesses and drivers. I wanted to follow up on a couple of questions, some of which follow up on the conversation we were just having. As you all know, separate and apart from the street vendor package, we passed historic legislation to protect Uber and Lyft drivers in the city and overrode the mayor's veto to do that. This has been the biggest issue facing drivers in the city since the medallion crisis. The biggest question now is going to be ensuring... and I know we have had conversations about this and appreciate your partnership and you mentioning it in your opening statement too. I would love to get a better sense of what resources you all need from a dollar standpoint. I know you just briefly touched on it, but if you can give a bit more detail about what resources you need from a dollar standpoint to implement this, from a staffing standpoint, what kind of staffing are we talking about? And what is the plan currently, separate from the staffing needs, for how we are going to start working together to implement it? I know you all share the same goal that we do on it, so it is just a question of making it happen together.

Well, I think, Council Member, let me just start by saying how critical this legislation is, which is why we supported it. I have spoken to, and I know you have too, rideshare drivers who wake up one day and they cannot log in. They have been deactivated. Now, deactivation is sort of a technical term, but it means they lose their livelihood. They do not know why. They had no due process. There is nowhere really to go, no one to call. They do not know what to do. And then there are downstream consequences. Maybe they are being targeted by predatory lending products. Maybe they are being affected by scams. So this is a major crisis facing thousands of workers throughout our city. The laws that the Council passed around delivery worker deactivation and for-hire vehicles are not only a necessary corrective but, in my opinion, a national and international model.

That said, they do require significant resources according to analysis, because we are anticipating significant volume of complaints. As you know, there is a look-back period, so within the first year I believe anybody who has been deactivated up to six years prior can file, so we are expecting a flood of complaints from the jump. What OMB has estimated is that for-hire vehicle would require 170 lines, 4.2 million in FY27 and 23 million in out years. Delivery worker deactivation, 34 lines, 1.3 million in FY27 and 5 million in out years. And Liz, if you would like to weigh in on how we are thinking about implementation, with the caveat that this is going to be very resource dependent.

Yeah, I would just add that we are already looking at rulemaking and some of the internal work that would be needed to make these protections real. But without resources, we are unable to do things like create the complaint interface on our online complaint filing portal, have systems to track how many cases are coming in, and then obviously have investigators and attorneys to take the cases, talk to workers, interview them, investigate what the real reason for their deactivation was, what the evidence is, whether the company did an independent investigation into the circumstances that led to the deactivation, and whether it was an algorithm or a person who made the final decision. All of these core protections that the law creates require people to be able to handle all of those cases for workers.

And I think that is something we should address. First and foremost is going to be the funding piece and making sure that we have that in place. You have our full commitment here in the Council to work with you all to ensure that. I know it is obviously a top priority for City Hall and our mayor too. But I think that is where the rubber really meets the road, making sure we get those resources in place. I look forward to working with you all to do so. I know your commitment. You have got a great team here, a great first deputy commissioner who is a constituent as well and worked very hard on this issue with me for a very long time. So I know the will is there. Let us figure out how we can make that happen.

It would be great to have, as CM Aldebol mentioned, just a breakdown of these different programs that we have passed that are priorities for both of us. What the needs are specifically. How have the conversations been with City Hall on that front in terms of making sure that, as we move to executive budget, these programs get the funding that we need?

Well, I think the mayor has made very clear that this is a significant priority for him. Since his time in the assembly, he stood with us when we returned $5 million to underpaid deliveristas and also got 10,000 workers eligible for reactivation. In terms of the budget, those conversations are ongoing, but it is certainly a matter of public record that the city is aware there are significant needs that have been identified for successful implementation of these laws. Those conversations are ongoing.

Great. Good to hear. I look forward to more data on that and more conversations. On another note, shifting more to the immigration context, a big issue that we are seeing in neighborhoods like mine in Jackson Heights, on Roosevelt Avenue and around there too, are a lot of individuals who are in desperate need of help but are encountering notarios or others engaging in immigration fraud, which is happening more and more and I am hearing more about it too. What is the number of complaints that DCWP has received on that issue? How have you all taken action and what are your plans going forward to help address it?

Thank you, Council Member. We want to make sure we get you the right numbers here. Let me just start by saying that for as long as I have been in consumer protection, immigrants face, and I know everyone here knows this, unique vulnerabilities. This year it is worse than I have ever seen, worse than our allies on the ground have ever seen. Given that many immigrants feel they cannot report scams to government, many companies unfortunately feel emboldened to rip off their workers because they can threaten workers with retaliation through ICE or otherwise. One of the things we are hammering over and over in every meeting any of us does is: if you want to file a complaint with us, go through Make the Road, go through New York Immigrant Coalition, whatever it is. If you do not want to give your name to us, that is fine. Go through a group. We will take in the complaint. We will reach out. We will do the investigation. We want people to be able to file complaints without fear of retaliation.

With respect to the number of complaints, we had 30 complaints in 2025 compared to 46 the previous year around immigration services providers. What we are seeing is that a lot of these scams are moving online, which makes year-over-year comparisons quite challenging. I do not know if either of you want to add anything to that.

No, of course. This has been a priority for several years for us. I can say that every single complaint coming from an immigrant goes to the highest levels of our consumer protection enforcement attorneys and we look at each one individually. To reinforce what the Commissioner says, you can submit complaints anonymously. You can submit it through an advocate. Whatever makes sense for an immigrant to be able to get information to us, we want to make that happen so we can talk to them. We actually have a case currently pending at OATH, the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings, against a notario who has repeatedly been preying on the Ecuadorian community in Queens.

This is something that we do face significant systemic challenges around given where we are in 2026, but something that we are very dedicated to continue to work on and try to find the best solutions for. When we get immigrants who are willing to talk to us, we will take action. I would add, Council Member, to your point about what we are doing: we are also in the midst of citywide sweeps of fraudulent immigration service providers. We have also dedicated some OTPS to digital advertising to try and meet these consumers where they are, to the Commissioner's point about a lot of this stuff moving online. We also plan to be starting up some in-person outreach as well, April leading into July.

Just one final point for the entire committee. We have two buckets of laws that we can actually enforce. We have the consumer protection law, which applies to all businesses no matter the subject, but we have very specific laws that this Council has passed for immigration service providers. We supported a bill last year that actually increased the penalties for violations of the immigration services provider law. We have a lot of great materials online for the immigrant bill of rights.

Absolutely. We would love to share those.

So he is helping with business owner education and enforcement issues, and he wants to make sure, as he has got a lot of street vendors in his district, if there is funding available to do outreach and education. As an answer...

I feel like I just heard that we would love more funding for outreach and education for street vendors and partnerships. You mentioned the street vendor project to support those efforts.

Indeed. Yes, we support those efforts.

Okay. Thank you. I want to talk finally about student loans. Your partnership with Summer appears to be delivering some results. He wants to know what data you have around Summer. Is it working? Is it not? How many people are they seeing? What are the impacts? They have a decent financial footprint. I think it is three million a quarter, twelve million for this past fiscal year.

Yeah, that is right. Well, we estimate that 1.4 million New Yorkers are struggling with student loan debt and we serve them in a number of ways. As you referenced, we have a program with Summer that has served thousands of New Yorkers who have created accounts, including many city employees. Our financial empowerment centers offer student loan counseling services. More than 9,000 people used our financial empowerment centers last year. A couple hundred of them used student loan services. We do a lot of outreach and education around student loan services. We do referrals to EDCAP too, and we do not fund them directly but we work with EDCAP closely. We appreciate Intro 177, your legislation, Chair, because I do think, given what is happening in Washington and the prospect of widespread student loan defaults for New Yorkers, we really do have to make sure these efforts are coordinated and integrated to reach as many New Yorkers as we can.

Thank you. I am going to start round two and Shirley, you can go first.

Thank you, Chair. I do have a question about revenue raising. You know, DCWP's enforcement programs can raise revenue through fees and fines collected from bad actors. Has there been an analysis done about the long-term revenue raising impacts of shorter-term investments in the DCWP staff budget?

Good question and I will do my best and then turn things over to my colleagues as needed. Our goal is never fines and fees as such. Our goal is a more fair economy, but often the way you do that is through fines and fees. You have to deter and punish wrong behavior and deter it for others. In 2025 we collected $15.8 million in fines and penalties, about the same as in 2024. In terms of projection going forward, it is the case that our enforcement of key worker protection laws can return millions of dollars not only to workers and consumers but also to the city treasury. My understanding is that our revenue targets, I believe this is just for our worker protection efforts, are about $300,000. We regularly exceed that by at least an order of magnitude. So I think we really are overperforming. Again, the goal is not revenue. The goal is justice for our workers, but the reality is that does lead to penalties that benefit the city treasury far in excess of what OMB has targeted for us.

Thank you. So I have a couple more questions if that is okay with you.

Of course.

So I want to figure out if we can break down what the budget for consumer protection is and what is being...

(01:52:34)

budgeted for worker protection so we can figure out where the balance is. I hear the 387 is your total lines and I hear that you are having 20 to 25 lawyers, which is a big difference between 20 and 25 and 15 to 20 lawyers. So I am wondering, do they overlap, or how does this break down? Are people specialized in doing this work? Are the lawyers specialized? I know we talked a little bit about the inspectors having some specialization.

Yeah, I can give you a bit of an overview and then my colleagues will jump in with some more details. So we specialize basically in terms of our outward enforcement work. We basically have two buckets. We have worker protection and we have consumer protection. Worker protection sits under Liz's team at the Office of Labor Policy and Standards. Consumer protection sits under Mike's team at general counsel. The headcount for general counsel is 83 active, but again, that is overinclusive in some ways because that is not just the lawyers bringing enforcement cases. That includes legal counsel. We talked about this a little bit earlier, that a number of the non-lawyer units of the agency are within the general counsel division. So that is when we drilled down before about the 20 to 25 attorneys that work on consumer protection work. They are generalists. They come in and they do any kind of case.

In the consumer protection lane they do any kind of case.

Yeah. They may get a case against a used car dealership. They may get a case against a debt collector. Now naturally, like in any workplace or any regulatory enforcement agency, you organically develop expertise and become a subject matter expert. So the people who do well and bring excellent used car cases will naturally have more used car cases. They develop an expertise and that happens organically, but we do not necessarily bring in attorneys with specializations in the many many industries that fall within DCWP's jurisdiction.

I will also just add briefly that the vast majority of our OTPS budget is essentially passed through. So our total OTPS budget for FY27 based on the JAM plan is 36.9 million. 12.7 million of that is through Kids Rise. That is straight pass-through. We do not administer it. 7.6 million goes through our youth financial counseling programs including youth financial empowerment. Five million goes to nonprofits that do free tax prep. $4.1 million for a beautiful building down the street, beautiful offices, and then our remaining OTPS budget to invest in the kind of software, for example, we need to do worker protection cases, and tools Mike's team needs to investigate consumer protection cases. That is all under $7 million.

Thank you. Very helpful. We noticed that the revenue projections for fiscal year 2027 are 1.3 million dollars lower than in fiscal year 2026. Is there a reason why those revenue expectations are lower?

I think we would have to circle back with OMB about those revenue projections they had for us, but to the commissioner's point earlier, we frequently exceed our revenue targets.

Just a clarifying question on that. Is that from the PMMR?

Yeah.

Okay. It would be great to know why they are lower and whose projections are lower. It sounds like you are doing additional enforcement and we would expect that not to be lower.

Yeah, we are bringing in more than a million dollars already in 2026, I believe.

Ken, about the current vacancies you mentioned earlier, you had 60 odd vacancies and your expectation is that you are filling those vacancies before the end of the fiscal year. Or are those vacancies remaining vacant through June 30th?

Do you want to talk about the vacancies and the challenges posed?

Yes. I mean, I think as you mentioned earlier, currently we are in a two-for-one hiring freeze. We have submitted candidates for hiring and we work through OMB on getting those fulfilled. If I could walk through the vacancies, I would say that 20 of those vacancies are in our Department of Health licensing unit. The next highest...

Which we do not control.

Which we do not control. That is a good point. That is what I was trying to get to. I am sorry. The highest vacancies are in Department of Health. We coordinate with Department of Health on those hirings and we work at their direction to get those in. I think a problem is that those vacancies end up being a part of our overall vacancy reduction target. So it does create difficulties in terms of how much the agency needs to meet for a project to eliminate the gap. But for the most part overall, our vacancy rate for our DCWP divisions is fairly low.

And if I could just underscore a point my colleague alluded to: I understand there are 20 vacancies right now for DOH. We cannot close those vacancies. So when we get a vacancy reduction target that includes DOH lines in the target, that disproportionately falls on consumer and worker protection because those 20 vacancies from DOH are untouchable.

Right. So of the 40 odd other vacancies, are you planning to try to fill those before the end of the fiscal year?

100%.

We want to fill those but we need to make sure those conversations with OMB are successful. So just so I am clear, you have gone to OMB asking them for the ability to hire and they have said yes on the two-for-one, and then you are posting and looking for applicants?

We are looking to hire. We interview and we make sure we do our step of the process to hire people and bring people in.

Those hires are still subject to the two-for-one rule.

Right. And so you have gone to OMB with actual names on the two-for-one rule saying, "Hey, we have these 10 people for these 20 lines that we want to hire and we want to do it now." Has that happened or are you just in some other process? You have lost people. That is why you have vacancies, right?

I think it is all over the life cycle of the hiring process. I would say for virtually every one of the vacancies we have posted it across all the divisions in DCWP, and there are ones where we have interviewed and made a conditional offer and we are waiting for OMB clearance. There are ones where we are engaging in active interviewing and there are ones where we have just recently posted the lines.

Okay. So is your expectation that you are trying to hire some of those lines between now and the end of the fiscal year?

Yeah, I think a great example of this life cycle of vacancies is we just received nine new lines in the preliminary budget. Those postings have gone up.

Right. And so that is a vacancy that is in the early steps of us actively working to hire.

Right. So we move as quickly as possible to interview people, select a candidate, get an accepted offer, and then that is the point at which it goes to OMB for approval to actually onboard the person. So we are able to move very quickly up until that point where we have someone signed and waiting for permission to onboard.

So do you have people waiting for OMB approval?

We do.

And how many lines is that?

I do not think we have that number with us.

We do have some. I just want to add...

Could you get us that number?

Sure. Thank you.

Just to add to the complexity, the rich tapestry of hiring in New York City. A lot of times what we are talking about are the non-competitive lines like for the lawyers, but there are also obviously competitive civil service titles where you have to call from a pool. So there is a whole different process for teeing up and having a pool called, which is unnecessarily complex and goes beyond the scope of what we can talk about today. But just to say, we are attempting through whatever the necessary route is for hiring for individual positions. We are trying to hire for those positions.

Yeah, it would be great to know how many of those are sitting at OMB and just waiting for decisions. That would be great to know.

Sure.

Does your expectation, Commissioner, that with additional hiring you could provide additional resources to the City because of the fees and fines that may be collected?

Absolutely. To say nothing of millions of dollars for consumers and workers in money they are owed.

Is it your expectation that without additional hires, New Yorkers will not be able to collect those millions of dollars in fees and fines?

It will mean a substantial reduction in both the amount of back pay and compensation we can get for workers, compensation we can get for consumers and effective enforcement of the laws to protect marketplaces. So yes.

So besides resources, are there additional tools you think at this point that the agency needs to be able to advance your overall goal of protecting consumers and workers?

I think one thing that we are really striving to do is just get the word out to the people of New York that if they are being cheated, whether it is on the job or at the grocery store, wherever it may be, to come to DCWP. We have already seen a pretty significant increase in the number of complaints in 2026. I think that is because of the great uplift we have had from members of the Council and from the mayor about the important work we do. So I do want more consumers and workers, more New Yorkers, coming in the door to tell us about what is happening. Of course, our ability to actually respond to those complaints will depend on resources.

I can also tell you, in particular, part of that is of course people, but part of it also is systems. We just did a hotel junk fee rule. We do not have economists internally who can estimate how much that is going to save, which I think is important for people to know. A data scientist who can look at one of Liz's big cases and figure out exactly how much a worker was underpaid across many years. We need really good data scientists to do that. So it is not just about, no offense, the lawyers. It is also about the data scientists and economists who support our work.

Yeah. I mean, speaking...

No offense to you either, all the lawyers in the room. It sounds like we need a lot more support for your agency in a lot of different ways to be doing that.

Can we talk about the student loan issue? Can you talk about the contract this company Summer has? What data and information you have from them? How successful they are so far and when their contract expires?

For some of those more specific questions I am going to defer to Carlos. My understanding is that the contract with Summer was entered into in 2025. Do you want to get into the budgeting, how it is being budgeted? Carlos, maybe how many people it is serving?

We do have that information. I do not know if we can get a figure right now.

I do not know if we have that information with us right now. I think Summer started last year in May as a pilot program for city employees. The pilot was expanded in August significantly and also significantly expanded to residents across the City. I am sorry. I think since that time in August, we have been evaluating how it has been working out for city workers and for residents. It is something that we are looking into. We also recently put up an ad campaign around our financial empowerment center services including our nyc.gov/studentloans that links to Summer to make sure that we are connecting New Yorkers with these services. I think we have taken a two-pronged approach both through our website and our financial empowerment centers to be able to provide New Yorkers with student loan debt assistance.

And so with Summer, I think you mentioned we were expanding the work in the hospitals for financial empowerment, doing free tax prep in hospitals and community-based organizations. Is Summer doing that on the ground as well?

No, those are community partners doing that.

And so Summer is just online? People have to go to Summer or is it online?

It is an online portal that people can go to.

Okay. I think I would love more details about how many people are going through that portal, how many people are getting served, what the benefits of that portal are, knowing that we have a lot of seniors and immigrants who may not have access to that portal and may not know how to use it, and who may question the veracity of putting information into a portal.

Yes. There is that portal and I think we could get you those numbers but we will confirm. I will also say, and I really want to stress this to people, our financial empowerment centers provide student loan counseling. It is not on a website. It is not a phone call. It is in person. People can come in with their manila folders full of papers and our financial counselors will help them sort them out and get them on a path to financial well-being. So just so I understand it, the additional funding for Summer, what additive value does it have in addition to what you are already doing?

Well, I understand that Summer offers services specializing in public service loan forgiveness and income-driven repayment. I believe they also do quality checks when people submit applications. But it is also the case that our financial empowerment centers do provide this service in person to New Yorkers who seek it out and we have great partners there.

It is a program that we are in the midst of evaluating and I think we are going to come to a decision about what metrics we can identify to help us make our decision about the longevity of the program. We can share this with the Council too.

I would appreciate that and ongoing conversations around it. So on tobacco enforcement, we have seen a real reduction in tobacco enforcement. I am wondering why that is happening. Obviously tobacco is a problem and in my district we have seen a lot of illegal sales of tobacco. We have had the sheriff's department go out numerous times to numerous locations and I am just wondering what do you account for the reduction in that kind of tobacco enforcement.

I am going to let Mike jump in in a minute, but my understanding is that there were significant efforts last year with the sheriff to shut down a lot of illegal smoke shops, which I think caused an unusual spike last year that might explain the reduction this year. But Mike, why do you not add to that?

Yeah, we collaborated across agencies because we all saw it. There was a huge illegal smoke shop explosion in the City, a lot of it because of the rollout at the state level of the cannabis licenses. So there was a strong collaboration between agencies. Members of our field enforcement division collaborated with the sheriff's task force to work on shutting down a lot of these illegal businesses. That is something we continue to collaborate on as necessary.

Separately, we license tobacco retail dealers and electronic cigarette retail dealers, or vape shops, and we have our independent legal authority too. We still continue to have inspectors in the field issuing violations for unlicensed activity and issuing violations for underage sales, and that continues apace. I do not think we can get you the exact numbers on that right now. That is not diverging strongly from prior years, although we will get you exact numbers on that. That is something we are still dedicated to doing. We are still using our own independent powers to seal businesses across the City that are repeat unlicensed actors under DCWP's licensing regime. So this is still something that we are doing every day in the field.

Yeah, great to focus on that because we see a lot of these illegal activities going on, illegal cigarette sales, and they get two or three violations and they change LLCs but it is the same location and the same people. We have the sheriff's department come out time and time again and the illegal activity is continuing and we hear a lot from frustrated neighbors.

Absolutely. The LLC shuffle is something that is pervasive across all enforcement for all regulators. So it is something that we struggle with. But again, even before the sheriff's task force really kicked in last year or the year before, using our independent sealing powers, we had been targeting repeat unlicensed actors. That has actually shown some benefits. One, it got some revenue back in the City's coffers because some of them actually finally did pay the piper and agreed not to continue to unlicensed sell tobacco or electronic cigarettes. We have also been thinking about how to use our overall laws creatively to actually address these issues.

We actually brought an action in state court last year that is still ongoing against a repeat recidivist unlicensed actor, I think on Lenox Avenue. We have powers under our law to go after the landlord. So we sued the business and the landlord and got a preliminary injunction against both of them. The actual bad actor was kicked out. The landlord had to agree not to rent to anyone who is going to do this bad stuff anymore. We are working on resolving that case. So it is definitely something, even with our threadbare resources, that is definitely in our portfolio of work that we think is important and we continue to work on.

Well, we would love to have you come back out to my district for the multiple locations that are doing all this illegal behavior. We have done some walkthroughs in the past with DCWP staff. There are three right on 28th Street that we would love to shut down. We have gotten the sheriff out there multiple times. They issue multiple violations, including yours, and they still operate probably right now. So anything you can do to help us get in front of that, because obviously illegal tobacco and illegal operations are something we would love to be able to shut down forever.

Yeah, happy to work with you on that.

Great. And just on those oath violations, can you tell us how many violations and what kind of money we are getting from those illegal cannabis and illegal tobacco operations? What kind of fines are we collecting?

So on tobacco and e-cigarettes in 2025, we collected approximately 2.1 million for unlicensed activity and that is based on 4,742 violations. I do not know, Mike, if there are any additional data points to add to that.

I would just clarify that we do not have authority to enforce over cannabis. Our authority is situated within tobacco and e-cigarettes. So it is over 4,000 unlicensed activities. And are not the fines up to $10,000 a day?

No. They are not that high. There are different suites of laws. The cannabis we do not directly enforce.

So I think this sort of gets co-mingled sometimes, but for unlicensed activity for tobacco retail dealers or electronic cigarette dealers, it is $100 a day. That can accumulate quickly when it goes on for years. And there are stiff violations for underage sales, flavored tobacco, flavored vapes, the usual array of misconduct that we are out there combating every day. The sealing powers that we reinvigorated a couple years ago that I referred to a little earlier have really helped. We thought it has had a salutary effect on conduct in the field but also on getting money returned on some of these penalties that in the past may have been just ignored. So in 2025, I was just helpfully handed a note to jog my memory. We sealed 57 businesses just using our independent DCWP suite of laws and collected $785,000 in penalties.

Okay. Thank you. So on NYC Kids Rise, the program, how much have you allocated in the preliminary budget for Kids Rise?

In the prelim, 12.6 million, as you referenced earlier I believe.

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Yeah, what I referenced earlier is 12.6, 6 million. Was that from prelim? Just got to make sure. >> That should be approximate. 12.7. >> 12.7 million. And how many young people does that include? >> My understanding of how this works, and someone might have to correct me, is that the budget assumes that every eligible kid is going to open an account. So starting with about $100. So I believe the way it is funded is a hundred times the number of eligible new students. >> Yeah. And I would say that this money is particularly a pass-through contract that we have. A lot of the oversight of it, I believe, sits with the mayor's office of equity and they conduct a lot of the metrics collecting for that program. >> So, just so I am clear, do we know if this is actually happening? Are children getting these $100? Is this happening? How many students is it impacting? >> As the commissioner mentioned, our understanding is the program is an auto-enrollment program, but in terms of the metrics, those are held by the mayor's office of equity. >> So auto enrollment by whom? How does a parent... I do not think it is auto enrollment. I do not know if it is auto enrollment. I think an account in theory is created for every student, and then a parent needs to claim that account on behalf of their child. So do we know if there are unclaimed accounts? >> There are many unclaimed accounts. That is my understanding. What role does DCWP have to... >> I think it is...

Those accounts get claimed if families know about it and they get the resources. >> I think it is a really innovative program but we really do not play a role in the administration of it or the promotion of it. We do not administer the program. It is really administered by the mayor's office of equity, where we hold a contract to pass through the money to New York City Kids Rise. >> So once the money is gone, you are not... did you take the money back? >> Everything goes out. >> But if the money is not spent, where does that money go? >> It goes back to the general fund. >> I think we would be happy to connect the Council with the mayor's office of equity to answer some of these questions about how that program is situated and works. >> But to be clear, when a parent wants to claim an account, they do not come to us. >> Yeah. >> We are not the ones creating... we truly play no role. It is entirely ministerial. >> Right. >> Yeah. Thank you. And so can I ask, does it make sense, if you are only the pass-through, that it actually belongs with you? Because if you are not sure how successful it is, or how many families are enrolling, or what the outcomes are, I am not sure what the money is doing here. >> There is a reason I believe we were charged with being the pass-through that predates me and I just do not know the answer. I believe probably when the program was first stood up, this was probably during Commissioner Menon's time, there was a reason for the contract to sit with us.

But as we have said, this is now administered by a different agency. It is a pass-through contract and it does, ultimately, impact our target revenues and our target pegs. >> Yeah. I would encourage, if we could do a little deeper dive on this, just to figure out the efficacy of doing it here and whether it is a little disjointed and what makes the most sense. Because if you are just giving money and then someone else is allocating it, I am not sure your role is critical. Or maybe it is, and if it is, maybe you should play a more comprehensive role. >> Well, I guess what I will say, Chair, is I just want to repeat something Carlos said. It is a ministerial role. It is up to the Council at the end of the day, I believe, how the program is structured. But where it does affect us is when we get a PEG target. My understanding is that money is included in the denominator, and as with the DOH lines, it is something we cannot touch. So if we hypothetically got a 1% PEG target, in terms of the actual impact on consumer and worker protection it is meaningfully greater than 1%, because a significant portion of our budget, both OTPS and PS, are lines and dollars we do not control. >> I appreciate that. I recognize that. And this is a financial literacy program that you have for youth. I am wondering how many educators you have in high schools. I assume. >> Yes. Let me just jump to my information on our financial literacy for youth program.

We currently have 15 financial educators assigned in high schools and districts throughout the City. We are aiming to reach... yes, we are partnering with New York public schools to ensure that every student has access to this kind of education by 2030. We do have a plan to expand the program over the next four years. >> So 15 educators, 450 high schools. >> Well, the way the program is situated, it is one educator per district and the educators are available for that district. So no matter if the district is a small district or a large district, just one per district. >> That is the aim essentially. >> I appreciate that. CM Aldebol. >> Yeah, but I am going back to vacancies again and the filling of positions. So, has your high rate of vacancies been due just to the two-for-one rule or hiring freezes? Have you had any other challenges in filling positions? Are there particular roles or positions that are harder to fill and what strategies do you have to try to fill those? >> I think, you know, I remember being here a few years ago and our vacancy rate was around 5%. I think that was a kind of natural attrition rate that we had. We are at that right now essentially, if we are not including the DOHMH lines. Over the course of the Adams administration we underwent hiring freezes and two-for-ones. Those impact the ability to fill vacancies. As my colleague Michael Tiger mentioned, there are certain vacancies that are revenue generating and very easy to hire. Some are subject to two-for-one.

Some are subject to civil service titles. Those have all different flavors of difficulties in terms of hiring. Some easier, some not. >> And I would just add to that, as a lawyer myself who has been in government enforcement a long time, we pay less than other similarly situated agencies. The New York AG, for example, whose lawyers are not getting rich, but they are getting richer than ours. I think that is true on the worker protection side as well. That is obviously a challenge across city government, but it is a significant challenge for us both in recruitment and retention. >> I think ultimately when we talk about our lower vacancy rate and also the challenges of what people make, I think it comes back to the work that we do and the fact that the folks in our agency care about this work deeply. And that is how you get an agency of our size performing and delivering results of that magnitude. And we have always said that with more resources we can do more work, and I think we all believe this work is critical. >> Thank you. >> I want to turn your attention to the solar... the solar lawsuit. How many lawyers or staff are on that case? >> That is a Mike Tiger question. >> We have two staff counsel. >> And how many cases do those two staff counsel work on besides the solar case? >> I do not have the inventory committed to memory, but they probably both have between five to ten other investigations of varying size.

I cannot commit to which specific attorneys are working on what, but I think that is a lot. >> And how many people do you think this solar case will impact? How many people do you think the potential fraud impacted? >> That is at least 370 consumers, but those are just the ones we were able to identify through people who came to our consumer services unit or were revealed through documents that we obtained through the pre-filing discovery process. We have gotten additional complaints that have come into the agency since we filed the case. That case is just at its beginning stages as far as the actual litigation, which is right now pending before the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings. I think we will definitely be able to report more as that litigation continues. And just to possibly forecast where you may be going, excuse me if I am wrong, this lawsuit, which has two attorneys on it, is aiming to recover $1.7 million in civil penalties for New York City. I guarantee you their combined pay is a lot less than $1.7 million, and $18 million in restitution for defrauded New Yorkers. It is a very good return on investment. >> Yeah. So do you think there are more examples like the solar case out there that you have limited resources to pursue? >> Oh, I am sorry. Go ahead, Commissioner. >> 100%. Yes. >> No doubt.

I mean, this is something that we are hearing from advocates on the ground, that we have heard from other regulators about, especially solar fraud right now in the home improvement contract space. There are a lot of people that are excited about engaging with green energy because they understand what is going on all around us, but that creates an opportunity for predation to occur. It is really pernicious right now. People are offering very enticing-seeming opportunities, like, "on the cheap we will make you go green," and then people are very bitterly disappointed. So yes, Chair, we would love to do more work on this if we had the resources. >> And just in general, it is not like we are bringing cases against every bad actor in New York City. We sued Extra Space. We started getting a flood of complaints, including at the rental ripoff hearings, about other providers in New York City. We are very strategic in our enforcement. One reason we brought the cases we brought is we want to and need to send a signal to other players in the marketplace. But the reality is that we are scratching the surface when it comes to how many New Yorkers are being defrauded every day. We are trying to sue big companies, get money back to people as quickly as we can. But that does require resources. >> Yeah. And I want to flag that I think you have seen an increase in worker protection complaints as well, right? A substantial increase, right?

Just in calendar year 2026, I believe the numbers are going up quickly. Is that right, Liz? >> Yes, that is right. >> So what kind of increase are you identifying? What kind of increase in cases? >> We are really seeing increases across all of the complaint categories. Our three biggest complaint categories are protected time off, fair work week and delivery. All of those are up. >> Yeah. So am I wrong to assume that the more these cases go up, the more the backlog of people having to wait to actually speak to someone to manage a case will continue to go up? >> That is exactly right. >> And I do not want to harp on this issue, but it seems like a resource problem which is then really negatively impacting consumers and workers. >> I think that is correct. Yeah. So I really do appreciate all the work you are doing. So yeah, restitution, worker restitution. Do you see, from last year to this year, from 2025 to 2026, an increase in potential restitution cases as well for workers? >> Yes. 2025 was our biggest year for worker protection restitution, a total of $44.4 million, which went to over 24,000 people. We are on track currently to match that number. We think we could far exceed that number with more resources for enforcement. >> And let us not forget either that last calendar year had the largest worker protection settlement in the City's history with Starbucks. >> Right. Thank you. And then we are going to exceed that, and additional resources will just continue to help workers.

I know we have spent a long time up here so I do not want to go through every section. I am wondering, I worry that there seems to be a gap between inspections and justice for people. People are coming to you seeking justice because they have been wronged and hearing that they are waiting a year, a year and a half, maybe getting restitution, maybe not. How do we as a City grapple with that in this moment where we are talking about affordability and the crisis of affordability, and these are the people who are struggling the most? >> Yeah, I think you need to take a multi-pronged approach. In the first instance it is really critical that both workers and consumers understand their rights and obligations respectively, or rather, that employers understand their obligations and workers understand their rights. That is one of the reasons, for example, when protected time off came into force earlier this year, and when some of the new tipping protection laws came into force earlier this year, we did a major outreach campaign. We sent notices to... how many employers did we send notices to? >> Over 55,000. >> So we sent notices to more than 55,000 employers. Most employers, I think, want to follow the law. They need to make sure they know what the law is. We also created an audit tool to help employers identify whether they are complying with the protected time off law sufficiently. So in the first instance, the best thing we could do is make sure that the law is followed.

But at the end of the day, there are always going to be companies that do not follow the law, and that does require sustained enforcement. Sustained enforcement does require sustained resources. This is not something an AI chatbot can do. We need lawyers who can go into court and take on big companies represented by big law firms with offices downtown. We need good people on the other side of the table to bring those cases. >> Yeah, I 100% agree with you. And I also want to flag that I worry about under-reporting, because people are scared of government, and in this moment of a federal government creating fear across our entire country, people become more scared of government and they really rely on community-based organizations in their neighborhood who are working with them, who understand the issues and have been on the ground. I think our obligation to those organizations, who are really going to help all of us do our job better, includes providing sufficient resources to them as well. I hope that as we move forward in this budget process the administration will hear our concern for those organizations and figure out how we can get them the additional resources that they need, in addition to the resources you need, to make sure that we can do this well. Because 8.5 million New Yorkers are relying on all of us to be there for them, whether as consumers, which are all of us, or as workers who are low-wage workers. >> I could not agree more.

Just to underscore the point further, a decade ago, maybe a little more than a decade ago, part of the business model of so-called gig work is that it is harder for workers to organize. It is harder for workers to build power. It is harder for workers to fight back against exploitation. They know they are not union. The companies assert they are not employees. Workers are isolated. And what the groups you are describing, like the Workers Justice Project, do is they bring people together to build worker power. I started my work many years ago in consumer protection, helping with tenant organizers fighting the foreclosure crisis. We see a very similar dynamic here with workers. We could not do the work we do. We would not even be aware of the problems that are happening in these markets if it were not for organizations that actually stand up for deliveristas, stand up for ride-share drivers, stand up for taxi drivers. These organizations are critical to our work. They are critical to the financial well-being of the people they serve, and they are critical to putting a check on a model that was set up for exploitation. >> I want to note this is a perfect way to end, Carlos. But I do want to add... >> Nevertheless, he persists. >> I echo what the commissioner said.

But I think, you know, one aspect I want to make sure is out there about these complaints, and why complaints are going up and why people feel trust coming to us, is because of this hyper-sensitivity to immigration status and collecting demographic data, and building partnerships with the organizations the commissioner just mentioned. But it is also because we are delivering to people concrete results. People getting results is why they have trust and want to come to us as well. That is only reinforced by our advocate allies who are here today. I am looking forward to their testimony too. >> Thank you. Thank you all. I know you have been here a long time. I want to thank you all for your time and your testimony. We will have some follow-up to keep going. I want to thank my colleagues. We have some panels, so let us let people know where their panels are. >> Thank you, Chair. >> Wait. Just so people know who are waiting and want to testify... >> You guys can go. You are good. >> I just want to let people know the panels that we have. We have six panels so far and hopefully we will get through them as quickly as we can. Obviously we will have questions for them, but I want to flag this for people who are waiting. Winston Burkeman, Breed, Lilia Tosen, Rebecca Cook Mack and Paul Song on the first panel. Second panel is Tito Singha, Magdalina Barbosa, Elizabeth Jones and Rosanna Rodriguez. Third panel is Aaron Einson, Ted Moore, Matthew Snider and Miriam Clark.

Fourth panel, Muhammad Aia, Liia, Gulipe and Gustavo Ai. And fifth is Bobby Desai and Carmen Jackson. Those are the first five panels. I want people to know that this may be taking a little longer and I apologize that it is taking so long. So now we are in the open hearing for public testimony. I just want to make sure that the witnesses are here to testify. Thank you. Just so you know, there is no video or photography at the witness table and you cannot present audio or video recordings at this hearing. If you have not signed up to testify, please do so. You can sign up in the back. You can submit written testimony and give it to the sergeant-at-arms. You can also submit written testimony, if you have not already done so, within 72 hours at testimony@council.nyc.gov. We will call our first panel. Thank you all for being up here so quickly. Winston, Lilia, Rebecca and Paul. You can decide which order you want to go. Can you all hear me? >> Yeah, we hear you. >> All right. Well, thank you so much, Chair, members of the Council and the committee, for the chance to testify and for the really important conversation we just heard. My name is Winston Burkevenbreen. I am the legal director of Protect Borrowers, formerly known as the Student Borrower Protection Center. We are a policy nonprofit focused on household credit and debt.

I recently testified before this committee on the need for a strong consumer protection law and a DCWP in light of the federal government's complete abdication of its consumer and worker protection mandates. A few highlights from that testimony for today. Complaints from New York City to the federal CFPB rose 63% from 2024 to 2025, for a total of 184,000 complaints. Most of the state, however, saw a rise of over 100% for that same time period. Now, we cannot prove causation, but I would suggest that the reason New York City saw a relatively lower spike is because DCWP fills that gap more so than the rest of our great state. I have included more data in my written testimony that I will submit for today, but I hope we can stipulate for the purpose of this committee and hearing that DCWP's work is critical for all New York City residents and workers. I want to focus today on how successful it is also in...

(02:34:06)

In addition to everything you have already heard, it is one of the only agencies in the city that brings in significant revenue in the forms of penalties and also puts real money back in New Yorkers' pockets in the form of restitution. We have heard testimony about the millions of dollars returned to workers and consumers, so I will spare you that litany, but it really is impressive, especially relative to the other jurisdictions that my organization works with. DCWP protects us from abusive employers and also from predatory companies that price gouge or cheat us during crises like the current affordability crisis. For this reason, New Yorkers literally cannot afford to underinvest in DCWP.

Unfortunately, the preliminary budget does just that. It is clear from today's testimonies that the agency does not have the staff needed to fulfill its existing mandates, let alone to continue filling the void from the federal government. This year's proposed budget would ultimately reflect an 8% funding cut, as the chair mentioned in his opening remarks. This really cannot stand. Making sure DCWP is fully funded and staffed is a sound investment. For this reason, I urge the committee and Council to double the agency's current budget.

I would just note too, and I do not know how this works in the budget process versus bargaining or other things, but I think it is really important that the commissioner noted that the salaries are relatively lower. I think for attorneys, and I am an attorney, it is really hard to try to get high-quality attorneys to come work for New York and to live in New York and to pay them $95,000 when they are a decade out of law school or something like that. So I would just appreciate that that point was made. Thank you for the chance to testify. I would be happy to answer any questions.

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Thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is Lilia Tosen. I am the president and CEO of Access Justice Brooklyn. I am here today to talk about a slightly different issue, which is the access to justice gap that affects consumer defendants and which DCWP does not have the resources to adequately address. AJB serves low-income Brooklyn consumers borough-wide, but most reside in neighborhoods in central and east Brooklyn. One way that we assist those clients is in the consumer legal advice and resource office, which we call Claro. As many as 70 to 80 people seek assistance at Brooklyn Claro on any given day, which is a number that has increased substantially since the pandemic compared to 2019. In 2025, we have handled an increase of nearly 40% in matters for consumer defendants relying on the same level of staff. The increased demand far exceeds the capacity of the Claro program.

To ensure that they are seen, consumers start arriving at the Kings County Civil Court at 9:00 a.m. and we do not open our doors until 2 p.m. As a result, the individuals who are forced to wait are waiting in courthouse hallways until the doors open. Many latecomers will be waiting in vain because we will not have space to see them. The last time I visited Claro, we put a signup sheet for 50 people out first and 67 people signed up, and we had to tell the people who signed up at 51 to 67 that there was no way that we could see them. We really invite the committee to witness this at Claro, to come any Thursday and to see not only our clients but also the constituents who are there and to hear about their challenges.

Some of these cases would be dismissed easily with even a bit of advice and counsel. These include attempts to collect on income that is exempt such as social security payments, default judgments that resulted from improper service and cases that are filed after the statute of limitations has expired. Without Claro, pro se consumers are largely left unaware of their defenses and rights. For example, while we applaud DCWP's new shield rule against predatory debt collection, we know that most consumers will never be able to know about their rights or how to enforce them without being seen by a legal services nonprofit like us. The same is true for survivors of domestic violence or intimate partner violence who have coerced debt, which now has stronger protections under state law. To improve our capacity to address these challenges, we are requesting the committee's support for our speaker's initiative request in the fiscal year 2027 budget. And of course, we also support the increase in the budget to DCWP.

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Good afternoon. My name is Rebecca Cookmack. I am a staff attorney in the Employment Law Project at the Legal Aid Society. Thank you for this afternoon's hearing and for the opportunity to testify. The mayor's preliminary budget cuts DCWP funding and we call on the mayor to reverse course and double the DCWP budget to $130 million as promised during his campaign in the FY27 calendar year. The mayor's vision for economic justice cannot be achieved without fully funding the agencies responsible for enforcing protections for everyday New Yorkers. The preliminary budget cuts funding to the portfolio that falls under the purview of the newly established deputy mayor for economic justice by over $250 million. This is the same amount it proposes increasing the NYPD budget by. So we join the Council in pressing for a budget that reflects the critical enforcement role DCWP plays in building an affordable and just New York City for all.

DCWP is a partner with the Employment Law Project's employment law unit. We regularly refer clients to them. For example, a while back, I connected a fast food worker with DCWP. She called Legal Aid's hotline seeking help when her hours were cut and last-minute changes to her work schedule were threatening her family stability. She was struggling to retain her second job, was worried about how she would continue to pay her bills, and was looking for help. I helped her submit a complaint to DCWP which was investigated and in the end she was one of the 15,000 New Yorkers included in the recent $38.9 million Starbucks settlement that will ensure the company complies with our laws going forward. DCWP made a demonstrable difference to her life.

DCWP is also a partner to the economic equities project at Legal Aid. Solar panel scams, which we heard about today, are endemic in parts of Queens and the Bronx. But because of arbitration clauses in those contracts, it can be very difficult to resolve them through private litigation. But DCWP is not confined by arbitration clauses. Recognizing that synergy, the Consumer Law and Bankruptcy Project was able to work with DCWP to share the patterns we were seeing and begin referring homeowners to the agency. And as we heard, in January of this year it brought an action against Radiant Solar, one of New York City's largest solar contractors.

DCWP is an important partner for everyday New Yorkers. It enforces City laws, and in the absence of federal enforcement due to the dismantlement of the CFPB, it is more essential to the city's consumers than ever. So we need to increase its budget now. DCWP's portfolio has expanded over the past year and it will continue to grow. It needs additional staff to meet the mandates of our groundbreaking, first-in-the-nation laws regarding the deactivation of app-based delivery workers and rideshare drivers. These laws require robust enforcement and regulation and serve as a blueprint for regulating gig economy platforms nationwide. This legislation's success or failure will have national implications. We have a responsibility to workers here in the city and around the country to vigorously enforce these laws. So we join the Council in calling on the mayor to fund DCWP in FY27 at a rate commensurate with its importance and to add those 200-plus lines New York City needs to do the deactivation work properly. Thank you.

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Thank you, Chair and members of the committee. I am Paul S. with NELP, the National Employment Law Project. We are a national workers' rights policy organization headquartered here in New York. We work frequently with the Council and with DCWP. We recognize this is a tough budget year. Most agencies are going to need to trim their budgets and not expand them. But despite that overall context, we believe there is a really strong case to treat DCWP differently. We believe it is one of the key places in the city budget where strategic investments make sense even in this environment. You have heard many of the reasons during the excellent hearing that you held before the panel.

First, DCWP is one of the most crucial frontline agencies for delivering on the mayor and the speaker's affordability agenda. Each year it recoups many millions of dollars of unpaid wages and restitution that goes right into families' pockets, that is spent in local economies and neighborhood businesses, boosting them as well. These are not abstract benefits but really vital lifelines for New Yorkers.

Second, the mayor and the Council have rightly been proud about our nation-leading new laws that we passed in 2025 and early this year. There has been a whole slew of them that are really cutting-edge protections. But as you have also heard, the fiscal notes in those laws have indicated that the agency needs more than 300 new staff at more than $19 million just to cover those new obligations, let alone the backlog of all their other work.

Third, DCWP, as you have heard, is one of the rare agencies where investment leverages a lot of additional money, both recovering money for New Yorkers that goes into the economy and fees and costs for the city budget. So it is a place where there is a case for treating it differently than other agencies for those crucial reasons.

Fourth, enforcement of the laws is also crucial for the markets and the kind of business environment in the city. Unless our laws are enforced, responsible companies that play by the rules will be undercut.

And finally, DCWP is really a tiny agency. It is 1% the size of the NYPD. The additional $65 million to double its budget is one-twentieth of 1% of the whole city budget. Truly a rounding error. There are a lot of places where those additional revenues could be found, even simply just trimming the proposed growth of the NYPD, but one way or the other, it is essential to find it. We know you agree with us. Your excellent op-ed in the Daily News yesterday really made the case, Chair Epstein. So we hope the speaker and the mayor will find a way to make that happen. Thank you.

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I really want to thank you all for all your work. I do not know if you knew this, but I helped start Claro over 20 years ago, so I know how vital that is and how important it is for consumers across the city. So thank you all for your work and I really appreciate it.

We will go to our next panel: Tito Senha, Magdalina Barbosa and Elizabeth Jordan. You want to leave the bag? We can. Is there lunch in there or something? I do not know who wants to go first. You guys want to negotiate?

(02:45:44)

I will go first. Good afternoon, Chair Epstein... that is so funny.

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And the Council committee. My...

(02:45:53)

...name is Tito Senha. I am the director of workers' rights for Take Root Justice. We thank the committee for the opportunity to submit this testimony. We are here as members of the Citywide Immigrant Legal Empowerment Collaborative, SILK, which is a consortium of several New York City legal service providers and CBOs, which Chair, you founded or helped create, and which we appreciate. We appreciated the calls earlier on to support CBOs and workers' rights advocates.

Along those lines, we are here to say that low-wage worker support funding is the only dedicated city funding that ensures that the city's low-wage and immigrant workers have redress from workplace injustices. In the last few years, this funding has supported our work in representing immigrant workers with claims of sick leave violation, sick leave retaliation and wage theft before DCWP. We request that the Council renew and increase low-wage worker support funding from $2 million in FY26 to $3 million in FY27. Low-wage worker support funding has remained the same for nearly 10 years and an increase is needed to cover increasing costs and the escalating demand for services supporting immigrant workers.

In the last year, SILK legal service providers recovered approximately $6.3 million in unpaid wages and damages. Since January 2020, Take Root has obtained approximately $4.5 million in settlements and recoveries for workers. SILK legal service providers in the last year have represented nearly 10,000 workers and conducted over 50 know-your-rights trainings. Low-wage worker support funding makes this work possible.

We commend DCWP's robust enforcement of the protected time off law. We commend DCWP's investigators and counsel for working collaboratively with us to bring claims before the agency, because we believe our advocacy helps enforce the law as well and helps improve the agency's enforcement of those laws. So we support robust funding for DCWP. However, this crucial funding has lagged behind other priorities as well as the low-wage worker support, requiring last-minute saves each year to renew this funding. And as the committee knows, cases are not resolved in one year. We need funding that is multi-year. So we respectfully request that this committee and the Council demonstrate its ongoing commitment to the city's low-wage and immigrant workers by renewing and expanding low-wage worker support for employment-related legal services from $2 million in fiscal year 26 to $3 million in fiscal year 27. Thank you so much.

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Thank you for giving me credit for doing it. It was a couple of years ago.

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Good afternoon, Chair Epstein. My name is Magdalina Barbosa. I am the director of legal services at Catholic Migration Services. I also really appreciate the testimony about the low-wage worker support initiative. Again, as my colleague Tito mentioned, it is the only dedicated city funding for employment legal services. When low-income workers experience wage theft, when they experience workplace discrimination, denial of paid sick leave, they often turn to trusted legal services organizations like CMS, like Take Root Justice, like Make the Road New York, like Legal Aid Society for free legal assistance. Many low-wage workers cannot afford or access legal representation from private attorneys. And while agencies like the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection enforce many laws, they do not have jurisdiction to address all types of workplace violations that many workers in this city experience.

I would like to share just two stories that illustrate the working conditions that many low-wage workers face and how CMS was able to assist these workers because of the funding from the low-wage worker support initiative. Recently, we resolved a case referred by the Carroll Gardens Association, a domestic worker advocacy organization, involving a nanny who worked over 50 hours a week without overtime pay. After experiencing a medical emergency on the job, she was terminated by her employer and was not paid for her last two weeks of work. Our attorneys acted quickly, advocating on her behalf and successfully negotiated a $25,000 settlement within two months. With the collaboration of another worker center, Catholic Migration filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of a group of delivery and kitchen workers employed at a restaurant on the Upper West Side. The workers earned as little as $3 an hour and worked over 60 hours a week without overtime pay. This case was recently resolved for $50,000.

It cannot go unnoticed that the city's immigrant workers are now in an environment where employers feel emboldened by federal immigration policies to retaliate against complaining workers by reporting them to DHS or at least threatening to do so to silence their voices. These workers have the courage to stand up for their rights and they deserve to have legal counsel to assist them in vindicating their workplace rights and to protect them from illegal retaliation.

While we appreciate the Council's continued commitment for this critical initiative, we are requesting increased funding for this initiative at $3 million in fiscal year 27. CMS and our partners have received the same award for this work for nearly a decade. During that time, the cost of carrying out this work, including personnel and operating expenses, has risen significantly. An increase in funding will help ensure that our organizations continue delivering this vital work and have the resources we need to meet the growing costs. Finally, I join my colleagues in the disappointment in the mayor's preliminary budget that does not provide adequate funding for not just the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection but also the City Commission on Human Rights. We need these agencies to be adequately funded in order for the city to be able to advance many of its priorities. Thank you.

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Thank you.

(02:52:20)

Good afternoon and thank you Chair Epstein and committee members. My name is Elizabeth Jordan. I am co-legal director at Make the Road New York. Make the Road is the largest grassroots immigrant organization in the state, serving 30,000 immigrant and working-class New Yorkers each year with community centers in Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island. We provide legal as well as health access and adult literacy and educational services. The low-wage and immigrant workers we serve across the city face unique legal and workplace challenges exacerbated by the unprecedented attacks we are seeing on immigrants. The Council's support for legal services for low-wage and immigrant workers is more critical than ever in the face of horrifying anti-immigrant attacks and an uptick in immigration-related retaliation. Our legal team represents hundreds of workers each year to recover stolen wages, combat unlawful discrimination, and enforce their rights to paid sick leave and other basic protections. We outreach to thousands of workers across the city and educate them about their rights. Ensuring that New York's low-wage workers have access to free legal services advances the affordability agenda by directly putting money back into the pockets of low-income families, preventing manageable issues from becoming catastrophic and reducing the need for expensive public safety net services.

To share one typical case: Clara is a grocery worker who came to us in 2023 with paid sick leave claims and wage theft claims against her grocery employer of ten years, and notebooks filled with her notes from years of work. We filed to recover her unpaid sick time and wages with both DCWP and the state. The employer was frequently out of the country and when missing in action claimed to have no funds to pay, and sought to obstruct agency investigations at every turn. Last year, both agencies reached settlement with the employer for nearly $25,000 and beginning last month, Clara received her first checks. Continued support from City Council discretionary funding is essential to maintaining and deepening our impact, including the initiatives my colleagues have mentioned, the low-wage worker support initiative. We also request an enhancement of Make the Road's allocation to $362,000 in order to meet our increased costs and an overall increase from $2 to $3 million.

Under the legal services for working poor initiative, we also ask the Council to renew $165,900 in funding for Make the Road's free legal services, which includes labor and employment as well. And finally, we request an enhancement of the speaker initiative funding to $300,000 for our wraparound services, which include workplace justice, immigration and housing legal services. The strong enforcement of workers' rights protections by the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection has been essential to our work over the years to protect immigrant workers in New York City. The preliminary budget, if adopted, would reduce DCWP's funding and leave the agency woefully under-resourced and unable to enforce the critical protections for working New Yorkers that it is charged with enforcing. The City should double DCWP's budget, but at the very least must allocate an additional $14 million to DCWP for fiscal year 2027 and a baseline of at least $39 million for out years to ensure their ability to enforce key worker and consumer protections that we heard about earlier today. Without meaningful and adequately resourced enforcement, these protections are not real for immigrant workers in New York.

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Thank you very much. Can I ask a quick question? On both the legal services for the working poor and the SILAC money, have you asked the administration to baseline that funding?

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I do not think we have had the opportunity. Certainly our agency and others have not.

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I would encourage you to, and please do reach out if that could be helpful in that.

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Thank you. Thank you all.

(02:56:55)

Thank you.

(02:56:56)

And I started with legal services for the working poor too. So Muhammad, Lijia and Gustavo are next.

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And then after that we have Aaron, Matthew.

(02:57:14)

Miriam and Ted more. Okay, whoever is ready to go.

(02:57:32)

I have to open my computer.

(02:57:34)

All right, I will take a minute. Good afternoon, Chair Epstein and members of the committee. I am Muhammad Ata. I am the co-director of the Street Vendor Project at the Urban Justice Center. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. So glad that we do not have the timer so I can get my ten minutes. No, it is not going to work. Okay. The Street Vendor Project is a membership...

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I am timing you right here now.

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All right, sir. Thank you.

(02:57:59)

The whole colleagues behind you. I am timing you.

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All right. All right. The Street Vendor Project is a membership-based organization with more than 3,300 members. We strive to support street vendors across the five boroughs by providing direct services such as small business consultations, legal representation and access to a wide variety of resources. We also organize to build power in the vendor community across the city and ensure that their voices are heard and they have a seat at the table. The vast majority of our members are immigrants who hail from across the globe. Given the diversity of our membership, our services are offered in seven different languages: Arabic, Bangla, English, French, Mandarin, Spanish and Wolof. Thanks to the diversity of our small team, we respectfully request that the Council considers our funding applications for this fiscal year, since the Street Vendor Project is almost the only entity providing education, outreach and small business services to the street vendor community in New York City.

Street vendors are non-traditional workers running the smallest businesses in our city, and they need the City's support to thrive. Earlier this year, the City Council passed a historic landmark package of legislation, including Local Law 54 for the year 2026, that will create a total of 21,500 new licenses for street vendors. 11,000 of these licenses will go to food vendors as supervisory licenses, a system that is still new to the vendor community and has created a lot of confusion with the existing system that has been in place for decades. 10,500 of these new licenses will be offered to merchandise vendors as general vendor licenses, a substantial change to a 47-year-old law that many vendors do not know about.

We respectfully request that the City Council prioritize creating a new initiative of $5 million to ensure sufficient resources for all non-traditional workers across our city. Street vendors, delivery workers, laundry workers and many others need support from the City to make sure that they are aware of the new systems, protections and laws that the City has created. The laws and reforms are only as good as they are followed, and we have to do our part to ensure workers are aware of the reforms taking place so they can benefit from them. We also urge the City Council to ensure that there is adequate funding to the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection this coming fiscal year so they have the capacity...

(03:00:41)

Thank you. So they have the capacity...

(03:00:42)

...needed to implement the local law. Looking forward to the next steps with the Council. Thank you so much.

(03:00:47)

Thank you.

(03:00:51)

Okay, good afternoon, Chair Epstein and members of the committee. My name is Gustavo Ch. I am a co-founder of Deliveristas Unidos and a worker organizer with the Worker Justice Project. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I am here today to speak about three important issues. First, we are calling on the Council to significantly invest in DCWP's capacity, including doubling its budget to $135 million and adding 400 inspector investigators and legal staff. Second, we are asking for $5 million to fund a workers' rights organizing and education initiative. Third, we are urging the City Council to close loopholes in Local Law 1332, including expanding the definition of deactivation to cover workers who are temporarily locked out or have their hours and job offers limited and punished by apps that prioritize their profit over our safety.

Over the past five years, Deliveristas Unidos and the Worker Justice Project have fought for and won ten historic labor protections for more than 80,000 app-based delivery workers. This includes the landmark standard of $20.44 per hour, the just cause protection that takes effect next year and the pay transparency law. We are proud to have partnered with the City Council to pass these laws, but our focus must be on making sure they are fully enforced. At a time when the federal government is cutting funds to critical agencies in New York City, New York City has stepped up by passing historic labor protections for workers like deliveristas. Now we must ensure that city agencies truly have the resources to enforce these rights.

We are asking for $39 million for DCWP in the FY27 budget so it has the staff and funding it needs to protect workers and make sure the labor rights we fought for are truly enforced. Additionally, we are calling for $5 million for a newly launching workers' rights organizing and education initiative led by the Street Vendor Project, DRUM and the Laundry Worker Center and the Worker Justice Project. This initiative will keep...

(03:03:55)

Time is expired.

(03:03:57)

...workers' rights felt and workers empowered by speaking out and organizing. And finally, we ask the City Council to close loopholes in Local Law 1332, the just cause deactivation law passed last year. We urge the City Council to expand the definition of deactivation, including workers who have temporary deactivation and reduced scheduling to limit work offers. This investment will make a real change and help hardworking New Yorkers live and work with dignity. Thanks again.

(03:04:42)

Thank you so much for the opportunity to testify. I wanted to say first, thank you so much for championing many of our deliverista laws that we have in place right now. I think this amazing committee has been very supportive and we are super excited to be able to work together with the agency. I also want to say thank you so much for highlighting the role of worker organizations in co-enforcement. This past year, we have been working very closely with DCWP to build a co-enforcement model that is a true close partnership with worker organizations. You highlighted something clear: we have a federal government that is terrorizing our communities, creating fear for workers coming forward to stand up for their labor rights. Now more than ever, the role of community organizations like Workers Justice and the Street Vendor Project is so critical to make sure that workers not only know their rights and feel they can trust our city government, but also that they can continue to organize. We strongly support that and agree that DCWP's budget needs to be doubled. They need double the amount of staff. There is probably more than $100 million that would give the agency what it needs. But we are also calling for the City Council to fund worker organizations because at the end of the day it is us who are going to be on the streets and in the field building trust, making sure workers have the power and are accompanied in the organizing process.

I also want to say that while we are so thankful that we passed strong just cause protections for app delivery workers, unfortunately the apps managed to leave a huge loophole in 1332, which is the just cause protection. Right now the law only protects workers who are permanently deactivated, leaving the door open for app delivery companies like Uber and DoorDash to use temporary deactivation and limitation of scheduling and the number of offerings as a main punishment when deliveristas cannot deliver within realistic time frames. We are hoping to pass further legislation to close those loopholes. We are also asking for support to make sure that some of our key funding priorities are funded. One of them is $4.9 million for our day labor workforce initiative that funds a lot of our workforce and workers' rights initiatives throughout the city. I am going to end it there and I just wanted to say thank you so much for being our champion, for standing with the deliveristas, and we are looking forward to continuing to work very closely with the City Council this year.

(03:07:20)

Thank you. Thank you all for all your work and I appreciate it and for your continued commitment to workers of New York City. Thank you. The next panel: Aaron, Ted, Matthew and Miriam. Thank you.

(03:07:50)

How are you doing?

(03:07:52)

You too. It is fine.

(03:07:57)

Whatever order you guys want to go.

(03:08:02)

Is this on? Okay. Thank you, Chair Epstein, the Committee on Consumer and Worker Protection and the New York City Council at large for their long-standing support of the legal services for the working poor coalition. My name is Matthew Shedler. I am the supervising attorney in charge of the consumer law project at Campbell Legal Services, one of the five members of the coalition that includes Housing Conservation Coordinators, Mobilization for Justice, Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation and Take Root Justice. The coalition was created with support from the City Council over 20 years ago to address the civil needs of working poor and other low-income New Yorkers whose income is slightly higher than the poorest New Yorkers, rendering them ineligible for free legal services. The LSWP's services are critical to ensure working New Yorkers maintain financial independence and to help them preserve economic stability in communities across New York.

In fiscal year 2026, the LSWP initiative was funded in the City Council budget under legal services for low-income and working-class New Yorkers, totaling $9,255,000, with each of the five coalition members receiving $455,000. In fiscal year 2027, the coalition members of the legal services for the working poor coalition are requesting a $600,000 allocation from the City Council, which includes a full restoration of the $455,000 allocated in 2026. A $600,000 allocation to each of the five coalition partners would support critical legal services and allow providers to deepen their impact in the practice areas of immigration, consumer, workers' rights and benefits law.

The impacts of cuts, actions and policy changes at the federal level threaten the social safety net and put working poor New Yorkers at risk for immigration abuses, illegal debt collection, the wrongful termination of benefits and other threats to their well-being. We call on the City Council to make a critical investment into legal services in fiscal year 2027, including the legal services for the working poor initiative. We continue to see that working poor New Yorkers who can barely make ends meet face catastrophic consequences as a result of a civil legal problem. Common problems include not being paid for their work or not being paid overtime, identity theft, the freezing of a bank account as a result of a collection lawsuit they did not even know about, or being denied public benefits to which they are entitled. The consequences of these problems can lead to other issues as well, including increased risk of eviction or foreclosure. These working poor New Yorkers can end up spiraling downward to join the ranks of the poor if they do not have access to lawyers to assist them.

Our legal services organizations represent these New Yorkers across all five boroughs. One example of our work is the case of Mr. G, a client of mine. After a long search in 2022, Mr. G found employment in a job he enjoyed. Unfortunately, this made him ineligible for the public assistance he was receiving. And when his landlord tried to raise his rent, he knew he could no longer afford his apartment. He moved out at the end of the lease, turning in his keys to the rental office. Years later, Mr. G found out he had been sued in New York City civil court.

(03:11:15)

Time has expired.

(03:11:16)

You are not going to hear the ending.

(03:11:19)

You did good.

(03:11:20)

It is a doozy. But with that said, we would ask you for the enhanced support to the legal services for the working poor coalition. Thank you, Chair Epstein.

(03:11:30)

Excuse me. Can you move in?

(03:11:32)

Yeah.

(03:11:33)

Thank you, Chair. Thank you all, council analysts, everyone. It has been a long hearing and thank you for all your work always. I am here to put into the record, because we have shared this with the mayor, first deputy mayor, chief of staff to the mayor and Deputy Mayor Sue. We delivered a letter last week to them calling for $130 million for DCWP and expansion of DCWP. UAW Region 9A led this letter along with 32BJ, HTC, Teamsters 804, 808, a bunch of other labor siblings, a lot of worker centers. This is not known by the Council, so allowing you all to know this as well.

I do not need to get into the disinvestment of DCWP. CM Abreu actually got into what I wanted to talk about on the 2:1 earlier today — that we need to get rid of the savings officer for DCWP, that DCWP actually brings in far more revenue than it currently does, and if we expand it, it actually could be a revenue generator for the City. Our laws and the affordability agenda that our mayor has championed requires robust enforcement and regulatory efforts. Our success as New York in ensuring that we are a City that people will believe in will have national implications, but also just implications for everything. Increasing this budget as a sound investment in enforcement puts money back into the pockets of working New Yorkers. It makes sure that people have trust in government. For all that, we are calling on the Council to call on the mayor for augmenting DCWP funding to the $130 million level. I will leave it at that. Thank you all.

(03:13:12)

Thank you.

(03:13:16)

Is this on?

(03:13:17)

Yeah, we can hear you.

(03:13:18)

Great. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak today. I am Miriam Clark, a former president and member of the legislative committee of NELA New York. We are an organization representing lawyers who represent the vindication of employee rights. We have more than 450 members in the state of New York, many of whom practice in the City. I submit this testimony on behalf of NELA New York to call on the administration and City Council to fully invest in the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection to ensure that it is able to fulfill its crucial mission of protecting City workers, especially the most vulnerable.

One piece of new legislation that I have not heard talked about today is the new right to prenatal leave law, which is an incredible advancement, probably unique in the country. But a six-month backlog and an 18-month investigation period renders that law virtually meaningless. So if I got fired because I went to my OB/GYN appointment while I was pregnant, my child is a year and a half old by the time there has been any redress. I have long lost that job. The same thing is true, by the way, with ESTA, another law that I did not hear too much talk about. If someone has been fired or they had to go to work sick, six months later, 18 months later, the law becomes meaningless, which is so frustrating when we know that City Council and advocates have worked so hard to pass these laws.

I am not going to go over the data because you have heard it from the department itself. The one thing that I wanted to point out that I thought was troubling in the PMMR — this is the 2025 PMMR — was that the number of workers entitled to restitution decreased from the first four months of fiscal 2024 to the first four months of fiscal 2025. So that is actually going down while the laws are becoming more and more protective. The amount of workers actually being helped are going down. The amount of civil penalties also decreased by 61% to $26,000. That shortfall continued into 2025. So while the department has been, I think, rightfully hailed as small but mighty in the press, it is not staffed by miracle workers. That is why the mayor during his campaign advocated for doubling the agency's budget to $130 million, which we also strongly advocate for. We recognize that in light of federal cuts, difficult choices must be made, but they should not be made on the backs of pregnant women who are afraid they are going to be fired because they went to their OB/GYN appointment, or New Yorkers who have to come to work sick because they are going to get fired otherwise. We therefore urge the administration and City Council to adequately fund DCWP at the $130 million level.

Your time is expired. >> One sentence. We urge the Council to consider requiring that the civil penalties collected by DCWP stay with DCWP and not go back into the whole City budget. Thank you.

(03:16:46)

Thank you. That last one is going to be a tough one for the City, but I appreciate not wanting that money to roll back in and to encourage the work of DCWP. Thank you, and thank you all for advocating for an increase in funding and for encouraging legal services working to talk about baselining that funding, because I think that might be a long-term, really helpful plan. Thank you all.

(03:17:09)

Thank you.

(03:17:10)

And Aid Desai and Camara Jackson are our next panel.

(03:17:25)

Could be restitution.

(03:17:41)

Thank you.

(03:17:45)

Good afternoon, Chair Epstein and members of the committee. My name is Camara Jackson. I am the CEO of Elite Learners, Inc. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to testify. Elite Learners, Inc. is a New York City based community-based organization with a strong presence in Brooklyn and partnerships that allow us to support families across multiple boroughs. I do not know if CM Banks is still on, but we have two storefronts in his district, so very proud to be here.

Through our community programming, including our housing work with homeowners, we regularly assist residents facing fraud and deed theft. Deed theft is one of the most devastating forms of consumer fraud affecting New York City homeowners. Victims are often longtime residents, seniors, immigrants and families facing financial hardship who are targeted by bad actors offering foreclosure assistance loans. They come in all forms. They offer modifications. Some offer quick cash deals. Many homeowners do not realize they have signed documents transferring ownership of their property until it is too late. Through our work at Elite Learners, homeowners receive assistance. We are able to connect with them and navigate the process required to challenge deed transfers. That often includes coordinating with the Department of Finance, the district attorney when fraud is suspected, and helping families gather documentation to pursue legal action for their homes. This is the work we do on a daily basis. We help families preserve homes that represent decades of work and generational stability.

It is through our work that we are asking for support through our speaker's request and discretionary funding to continue. Prevention is just as important. Elite Learners also conducts proactive outreach to communities where homeowners are most vulnerable to predatory actors. We help residents recognize warning signs of deed theft, review suspicious documents and connect with trusted legal counsel before doing anything. For these reasons, we encourage the Council to ramp up efforts to protect homeowners. Ensure residents in your district have access to trusted people, nonprofit organizations, and support during and before deed theft occurs. We are happy to be a resource. Again, Elite Learners, Inc. — thank you so much for having us.

Thank you.

(03:20:32)

Good afternoon, Chair Epstein. My name

(03:20:34)

is Bhairavi Desai. I am the executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance. We speak in full support of DCWP's request for a proper budget. Last year and again this year, as we had to override the veto, we won a historic bill, which was the result of the work of a phenomenal champion in CM Krishnan and a lot of blood, sweat and tears from our membership. We won the biggest protections against unfair firings by Uber and Lyft. Uber and Lyft would be considered the largest employers in the City of New York. There are over 200,000 licensed TLC drivers in New York City. About 85% of them work just for these two companies. We serve collectively a million people every day. About 85% of that work is from Uber and Lyft dispatches. These companies have incredible power over the drivers.

(03:21:40)

They are able to fire you with the click of a button. This is a workforce that spends $60,000 to $80,000 in investments on their vehicle. With the click of a button, when you are fired overnight, it means you are not only left jobless and incomeless, but you are left with a debt that can actually become generational poverty. So when we are talking about the enforcement of this law in particular, it is not just about the model bill on ending unfair firings. It is absolutely a measure to end poverty. I think that is the key thing here in so much of DCWP's work. Services, education, information — these are all critical. Representation is critical. These are all necessary protections for the working class and the poor. But we do not talk enough about how much poverty is created by corporate wrongdoing, whether it is wage theft or unfair firings. A robust DCWP I see as not only a vehicle to right these wrongs, but it is absolutely a stop measure against increased poverty in our City. We need this agency to be properly funded. We need an end to the austerity budget, which has included not only cutting services for the poor but also giving corporations a free hand. Having a robust DCWP is really the anti-austerity budget.

Lastly, I really just want to say to the Council as a whole: we need to tax the rich. All of this that we are talking about is critical money. >> We cannot do it without having the courage and the vision to really make those who are wealthy — both individuals and corporations — finally pay their share. Because the budget holes the mayor has talked about are still not enough. We need a bigger budget, and that can only come when all of New York pays its share, particularly those that can actually afford it.

(03:24:04)

Thank you both. But for Albany, we could do it. So we just need our state legislators — which I know fairly well about — to put the resources in place and allow the City to have more control over our taxing power. Thank you, and thank you for the work that you have done and continue to do for drivers across the City. One quick question: do you get HOP funding for the work you are doing around the... >> No. >> Have you applied for state funding, for the attorney general, for HOP funding? >> Not for HOP. >> Okay. All right. >> But we will. >> All right. Thank you both very much. I appreciate your work. Next we have folks on Zoom. Malot Samore is the first person — you can unmute and begin. I do not know if you are still there. If you cannot unmute, we will move on when you can. But let us move to Zara Nasier.

(03:25:19)

You may begin. Oh, hi. Sorry, just collecting all the things. Hey, everyone. Good morning — good afternoon — Chair and members of the Committee on Consumer and Worker Protection. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is Zara. I am the executive director of People's Plan NYC. We are a citywide coalition advancing a more just and equitable budget. I am here today to speak about the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection and its role in holding corporate actors accountable, as part of a broader campaign that we are running called Make Them Pay, which is starting this year.

Right now, New York City, in our estimation, is owed at least $1.5 billion in unpaid penalties from landlords and also some corporations whose violations harm workers, tenants and small businesses. DCWP is responsible for enforcing some of the most important worker protection and consumer laws in our City, from wage theft and paid sick leave to unfair business practices. It does a tremendous amount of work for what it costs. It is one of the best bargains in the City. But it is underresourced, and when enforcement is weak, bad actors treat penalties as the cost of doing business. Workers lose wages, consumers are exploited and responsible businesses are undercut. We are calling on the Council to support our proposal and help push for significant investments in DCWP. We echo other folks here who said DCWP needs its budget doubled to $35 million. We need to add 400 inspectors, legal staff and investigators. The department today also named that they need additional resources. This is really about deterrence, fairness and protecting New Yorkers.

It is part of a broader shift that we are pushing for, which is real corporate accountability across agencies and collections. Our campaign is focusing on improving collections and imposing real consequences for bad actors. We know that some of the most important and effective collection work happens at the agency level. The agencies have far better collection rates than even the Department of Finance. We really feel that corporations will not change their behavior unless there are real consequences. New Yorkers follow the rules every day. When they do not, they are penalized. Corporations should obviously follow the law too and face consequences that are proportional to the harm that they cause, especially when it harms and affects the health, safety and wages of New Yorkers. We are proud to be joined in this campaign by over 40 organizations and unions, including folks who testified today like Worker Justice Project, brand workers and the Coalition for Domestic Workers, along with 10 and counting elected officials in New York City Council. We are obviously growing that number every day. We appreciate the Council's partnership and look forward to...

The time is expired.

(03:28:20)

Thank you.

(03:28:23)

Thank you very much. And is Malot there?

(03:28:28)

You may begin.

(03:28:32)

Yes. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chairperson and distinguished members of the New York City Council Committee on Consumer and Worker Protection. My name is Milatsu and I am the director of policy advocacy and strategic partnerships at the New York Network of Worker-Owned Cooperatives, also known as NYNYC. We are the member-led trade association representing worker cooperative businesses and democratic workplaces in New York City. I am here alongside my colleagues from the Democracy at Work Institute, Center for Family Life, Workers Justice Project and our Advocacy Council members representing 10 other organizations that make up the Worker Cooperative Business Development Initiative, WCBDI. We are here asking New York City Council to continue supporting the expansion of worker ownership in next year's budget and firmly into the future.

Since the inception of the initiative, we have created over 200 new worker cooperative businesses and over 1,200 new jobs that are not only providing higher hourly wages, but also building wealth and assets for individuals who are overwhelmingly BIPOC women and immigrants. We have seen firsthand how our initiative has served to bolster our sector, strengthening existing cooperative businesses and creating new ones. The initiative partners have collectively worked to create a comprehensive ecosystem of support for worker businesses that not only ensures creation of new worker cooperatives in low-income areas, but also the technical assistance needed to sustain businesses and create jobs, as well as the education and outreach needed for communities, interested entrepreneurs and allied organizations. We did a lot of work during the pandemic and in earlier years and beyond to bring in over $20 million in grants and loans to cooperatives and keep them afloat. We did this with a $3.7 million budget. We are here asking City Council to enhance our funding to $5,970,000 in order for the initiative to double down on the essential long-term economic recovery for worker-owned cooperative businesses that we will need to claw ourselves out of this crisis. We thank the City Council for the opportunity to testify and hope that you will consider our budget priorities and recommendations during this year's budget negotiation process. Thank you.

(03:30:34)

Thank you very much. I really do appreciate the work of building more worker co-ops, something that I was involved with back in my old legal services days when we got that started. Thank you.

(03:30:47)

Thank you, Council Member.

(03:30:49)

The next person is Katherine Mzek. >> You may begin.

(03:30:56)

Good afternoon, distinguished council members, and thank you for the opportunity to testify online today. My name is Katherine Mercek and I am a worker owner at two co-ops here in New York City: the Samaya Yoga Back Care and Scoliosis Collective and Oasis Solidarity Collective. We are members of NYNYC. You have already heard from my colleague Meat, which is a partner organization in the WCBDI initiative. Your support of our community of democratically run businesses helps to protect and create jobs for women, immigrant workers and communities of color across the five boroughs in a wide array of industries. Thanks to City Council's support, New York City has more cooperatives than any other city in the US. I am testifying today to urge you to continue to support the great work of WCBDI, enhancing the initiative's funding to 5.09 million, and to also support commercial rent stabilization to protect New York City's workers and small businesses from displacement.

The first co-op I joined, Samaya, is a very special little studio for therapeutic yoga in Chelsea with classes both online and in studio. I am proud to say my 19 other worker owners and I have been democratically running the studio together for 11 years in the same space the whole time. To make yoga accessible to all ages and abilities, we use specialized rope walls and equipment, which incurred a lot of startup costs that we are still paying back. Getting our business through the pandemic was a huge challenge that forced us to close our physical space temporarily and pivot to teaching online. But we were able to get through it for two main reasons. One, because we are a cooperative. Two, because we were lucky enough to have a reasonable landlord who was willing to work with us. As a cooperative, we banded together to decide as a team how we would pivot, divide the labor and work together to keep the studio afloat while making sure our teachers who most needed to work could keep teaching online and make ends meet.

We were also grateful to have access to technical support from WCBDI partners and a couple of small grants specific to worker co-ops. This support provided pro bono legal services with Tac Root Justice to help us with the negotiation of our lease, and the NYNYC cooperative sustainability fund, which allowed us to pay for consulting sessions to help manage some communication and distribution of labor challenges during the transition and to strategize for the future. The grant fund was also a huge support for my other co-op, Oasis Solidarity Collective, which is made up of a diverse group of worker owners with the mission of providing training and education on worker cooperatives and meeting facilitation services with an anti-oppression lens. The grant fund allowed us to cover the cost of a new website as we go through a rebranding strategy.

Even though both of my small cooperative businesses are surviving, it is incredibly difficult to thrive in this economic environment. It is a myth that the pandemic reset commercial rents for small businesses back to reasonable rates. Commercial tenants have extremely limited protections from being pushed out by exorbitant rent hikes or evictions, even when they have built a community around their space and spent tens of thousands of dollars building it out specific to their needs, as my co-op has. This causes the death of so many small businesses, like two of the yoga studios I used to work for before they sadly had to close because their landlords were not so reasonable. The system should not be based on the luck of the draw and the whims of the particular landlord that you end up with. So all in all, please enhance WCBDI's funding to 5.09 million and please support commercial rent stabilization to protect our beloved small businesses from displacement.

(03:34:24)

Thank you so much. Thank you for your time and thank you for letting us know how important the work of worker-owned cooperatives is, as well as affordability for our commercial spaces. Maybe more CLTs would help with that. I want to note that CM Sanchez could not be with us today because of other commitments, but I hope she was able to join. Our next speaker is Nilia Coyote.

(03:34:51)

You may begin.

(03:34:54)

Good afternoon, chair and members of the committee. My name is Nila Coyote and I am the executive director of New Immigrant Community Empowerment, NICE, located in Jackson Heights, Queens. I am sorry for the noise — it is literally the 7 train passing. For over 25 years, NICE has been a trusted community organization and frontline responder for New York City immigrant workers during our city's most acute crises. Our deep integration has allowed us to reach hard-to-reach individuals. Currently, NICE's core purpose is to intentionally drive economic mobility and community integration among immigrant families through our empowering model: the pre-apprenticeship for life and work.

Today, we strongly urge the Council to fully fund the New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, DCWP, in the upcoming fiscal year 2027, for communities, immigrant workers, women, pre-apprentices, day laborers, domestic workers and survivors of labor exploitation. This agency is not just an abstract one. It is a critical lifeline. It represents one of the few institutions where workers can safely report abuse, recover stolen wages and demand accountability without fear. At NICE, we witness daily both the harsh realities and the extraordinary resilience of low-wage immigrant workers. Workers come to us after enduring wage theft, unsafe workplaces, sudden termination and retaliation for asserting their rights. Many are excluded from traditional labor protections or silenced by fear tied to their immigration status. Without strong enforcement from DCWP, these workers are left vulnerable to ongoing exploitation.

At the same time, we know that enforcement alone is not enough. Workers must also have pathways to economic mobility, dignity and long-term stability. This is why NICE launched the pre-apprenticeship for life and work, a comprehensive workforce development model that equips immigrant workers with job readiness skills, industry-recognized certifications, professional ESOL and critical life skills training. Through our program, participants not only access better job opportunities, but also build the knowledge and confidence to assert their rights in the workplace and navigate systems that have historically excluded them. This is where the work of DCWP and community-based organizations intersects powerfully. When workers are informed, organized and supported, and when there is a strong enforcement agency behind them, real accountability becomes possible. We have seen firsthand how DCWP's enforcement of laws can transform lives, recovering millions of dollars in stolen wages, partnering with CBOs in co-enforcement, and much more. At a time when immigrant communities are facing heightening economic instability, rising cost of living and increasing fear driven by broader immigration enforcement, the city must not retreat from its responsibility. It must lead with courage. Protecting workers is not optional. It is essential to the health and future of our city.

(03:37:58)

Time has expired.

(03:38:00)

Thank you. We respectfully call on the Council to fully fund DCWP's enforcement and outreach programs and expand investments in CBOs' worker protection and workforce development initiatives. Thank you for your leadership and the opportunity to testify.

(03:38:17)

Thank you very much, and thank you for the work that NICE does for New Yorkers all over the city. Genesis Gonzalez, you may begin.

(03:38:29)

Good afternoon, Chair Epstein and distinguished members of the New York City Council Committee on Consumer and Worker Protection. My name is Genesis Gonzalez and I am an assistant director at the Center for Family Life in Sunset Park, a 48-year-old service organization dedicated to providing vital resources to low-income families in Brooklyn so they can thrive and build sustainable futures. I am here today to respectfully urge the New York City Council to continue supporting the worker cooperative business development initiative by allocating 5.1 million in fiscal year 2027, including 675,000 for the Center for Family Life to continue helping low-income families develop cooperative businesses.

With continued support from the New York City Council in fiscal year 2027, the Center for Family Life will incubate a new worker cooperative in administrative services, creating pathways for young professionals to enter and compete in the service economy while advancing their careers. We will also provide 275 technical assistance services to existing worker cooperatives to help them address administrative challenges and remain operational. In addition, we will offer 20 training sessions in business administration, finance, marketing and industry-specific skills, enabling 400 participants to strengthen their entrepreneurial knowledge. Through these efforts, we also aim to create at least 15 new jobs in cooperative businesses. These achievements would not be possible without the steadfast support of the New York City Council. On behalf of the Center for Family Life, thank you for your time, consideration and commitment to economic equity. We respectfully ask for your continued support in fiscal year 2027. Thank you.

(03:40:13)

Thank you. I appreciate you and appreciate the work of the Center for Family Life, which I have worked with many times over the years. Zuben Slemani, you may begin.

(03:40:26)

Hi, good afternoon. My name is Zuben Slemani with the New York Taxi Workers Alliance. I am a senior staff attorney and I just wanted to really impress upon everybody here the need for full funding of DCWP's initiatives, especially with regard to the driver deactivation protections. I think it is important to know just how crucial these protections are. Going beyond what the Council built off of its success with fast food, if you compare what happens to a for-hire vehicle driver when they are deactivated, it is not just a loss of income. It is ongoing significant debts — car payments, insurance — that accumulate and cannot be paid off while they are out of work. We passed what I think is the best driver deactivation protection framework in the country. It is the best one on paper, but it is only going to be as good as its enforcement.

I would note that other places that have driver deactivation laws included funding for driver organizations to do these appeals somewhat independently, perhaps in an informal way. We rejected that model because we need a real, solid, enforceable legal structure here. I think there are two sides to this enforcement. There is the prosecution and investigation side, and then there is the larger framework which allows those prosecutions to be effective — the data reporting requirements, ensuring that drivers receive notice in an adequate manner and making sure that the companies are doing those things.

It was really important to us as we pushed this Bill with CM Krishnan that there would be a private right of action, and we think that a lot of cases would be appropriate for a private action. But there are always going to be some cases, especially those that require more of an investigative push, that are going to be more appropriate for public action. So on the one hand, it is important that DCWP has adequate funding for their investigations and their prosecutions. But that larger piece of compliance with the data reporting and the notice and all of that is necessary even where drivers choose to go with a private attorney to court or arbitration.

I think it is important to note that there has never been a problem with the city finding resources when it comes to regulating and punishing driver behavior. The TLC has an army of lawyers who prosecute drivers. They move quickly, and the level of minutia in which they punish drivers has been extraordinary. In one year, I recall searching the database and finding over a hundred violations for drivers using the wrong tone of voice. I am not kidding. I am not making this up. It was a discourteous conduct violation for speaking in the wrong tone of voice. I represented a...

(03:43:24)

...a driver once who was charged with an act against the public...

(03:43:28)

Time has expired.

(03:43:29)

...for using a nebulizer so he would not have an asthma attack and would not stop breathing in the car. So we can always find the resources when it comes to punishing this workforce. I challenge everybody here to do the right thing and find the resources to make it so that drivers who have been unfairly deactivated have a stable life, a stable income and can remain at work when they get fired through no fault of their own.

(03:43:50)

Thank you very much and I appreciate all your work. I know how important this is to all of us. Marissa Centeno, you may begin. I do not know if Marissa is there, but we will go to the next one. Christopher Leon Johnson, you may begin.

(03:44:18)

Oh, yeah. Hello. My name is Christopher Leon Johnson, deputy chair of the cabinet's pre-budget hearing committee. I want to make this clear: I know that — shout out to Mamdani for being the person who had the order sent up to our commissioner to repeal the criminalization of the e-bikes, but it should have been repealed on January 1st, 2026, when he got sworn in as mayor. The minute after he raised his hand as mayor, he could have done that. We should not have waited three months to do this.

I will make this clear: I think that you, Mr. Chair, need to step up to the plate and make it so that the worker justice project gets at least a million dollars to help out the workers who are going to be laid off by Relay in the next week and a half, by April 1st, 2026. What are these workers going to do after April 1st, 2026? Unless they go to another platform — that is my concern. What needs to start happening more is regulation of the apps. I supported the hub. I understand we can put them all over the city, but if these workers are in a situation where they can still be deactivated despite the fact that in the summertime there are going to be unfair deactivation laws, and they can still be deactivated — not only for the e-bike riders but for for-hire vehicles — putting in hubs and taxi stands and all that does no justice at all. The City Council serving on this committee has to be more proactive when it comes to protecting worker rights.

I believe that the City Council needs to make a letter openly condemning those who have sold out the taxi workers alliance. I will also condemn those who have not said anything about the criminalization of the e-bikes — not one time in the past three months or even the year prior did they call out the criminalization of the research. It is going to end in 2027, but the damage has already been done. Look at the cause and effect. A lot of workers have had to go to court, and you can say that Relay is going to be held accountable, but what about the money that the city should be paying these workers back for missing days out of work? If I had it my way, I would be suing the city on behalf of the e-bike riders so they can get paid back by the city for taking time off work due to the criminalization, for getting tickets and going to court.

I think the City Council, like I said, going forward — my goal right now is that Relay needs to be held accountable. They should not be pulling out of the city like this. This is wrong for these workers who are out of a job on April 1st, 2026, with nothing and nowhere to go. This is where workers went when Uber and DoorDash were not an option. This is where they had jobs. So we can talk about worker justice all we want, but my...

(03:47:26)

Time has expired.

(03:47:27)

...goal going forward is to help out the workers with Relay. So thank you so much.

(03:47:31)

Thank you very much. Next is Christine Hines, you may begin. Okay, if we do not see Christine, maybe CJ Hayes next, you may begin. No CJ. Maybe Brandon Lee Clayton. Okay. Next, maybe Ben Fuller Gogans. Next is Allan — no last name listed. And last that I have listed is Latice Munoz. All right, we are trying to figure out if we can get people unmuted. Just a reminder: if people have not signed up to testify, we are close to the end of the hearing, so we need to know that you are testifying. If you have not signed up and you wanted to, this is kind of the end of the line. I think we see someone raising their hand. We are just trying to figure out what the problem is getting them unmuted. So, for the people who are trying to get unmuted, I think you need to accept being upgraded to a panelist, and then in theory you can be unmuted. So if you have been asked to be upgraded and you have not done it yet... Okay, good. So Latice, do you want to go first? Oh, Marissa is first. Marissa, are you ready?

(03:50:13)

Yes.

(03:50:14)

Okay, go ahead.

(03:50:16)

Thank you to the members of the Committee on Consumer and Worker Protection for the opportunity to share my testimony. My name is Marissa Centino and I am with the National Domestic Workers Alliance. I am here today to speak on behalf of the New York City Coalition for Domestic Work to urge the City Council to double the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection budget to 135 million to strengthen its enforcement capacity and hire 400 investigators, inspectors and legal staff. The NYC Coalition for Domestic Work represents nearly 250,000 nannies, house cleaners and home care workers who provide essential care and support to New Yorkers. Our coalition comprises Alikar, Carol Gardens Association, Damayan, Hand in Hand, the Domestic Employer Network, LANA and ourselves, the National Domestic Workers Alliance New York Chapter. Organizations with membership throughout the five boroughs, domestic workers organized for decades to win fundamental rights like minimum wage, paid overtime, protections against discrimination and harassment, paid sick leave, amongst other rights. In fact, New York is the first state in the country to pass a domestic worker bill of rights.

DCWP is responsible for enforcing some of those protections such as paid sick leave. For a decade, organizations that are part of this coalition have built a strategic and effective partnership with DCWP and the paid care division dedicated to joint domestic worker outreach and education with accessible know-your-rights materials and trainings. Rights are only useful if individuals are aware of them and can exercise them to improve the working conditions of domestic workers. It is essential that we continue to expand our partnership with DCWP, especially given the current national political climate. It has become even harder to reach immigrant workers, in particular domestic workers who work in isolated and private homes and are more likely to fear coming forward and reporting labor rights abuses.

In addition, DCWP launched an innovative project called the mediation program in 2022, which has become a critical resource for domestic workers in New York City, providing fair, accessible and effective pathways to resolving workplace disputes and recovering unpaid wages, including unpaid sick leave and other rightful earnings. We have seen a successful roster of workers who we have been able to usher through this mediation clinic and we have seen success in wages recovered. Many domestic workers have effectively used this program to recover their wages and secure the benefits they are entitled to. It is important to build up the DCWP budget to maintain and grow enforcement programs, something we are very passionate about here at NDWA. With increased funding, more domestic workers will be able to know their rights, employers will comply with their obligations, workers will have access to remedies for labor violations and will be able to use services like the mediation clinic. We have found DCWP and our collaboration to be very innovative and forward thinking and we plan to continue collaborating.

(03:53:45)

The time is expired.

(03:53:47)

Thank you.

(03:53:48)

Thank you very much. I appreciate your testimony. Next witness, you may begin.

(03:53:58)

Thank you. My colleague Marissa Centino just gave the testimony and thank you so much.

(03:54:07)

All right. Thank you. Are there any other witnesses in person or online who want to testify?