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Your afternoon must-read briefing informing the daily conversation among knowledgeable New Yorkers | | | | |  | | By Julia Marsh and Danielle Muoio Dunn | |  Daniel Penny, center, is walked by New York Police Department detectives detectives out of the 5th Precinct on Friday, May. 12, 2023 in New York. Manhattan prosecutors announced Thursday they would bring the criminal charge against Penny, 24, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, in the May 1 death of 30-year-old Jordan Neely. (AP Photo/Jeenah Moon) | AP Photo/Jeenah Moon | | Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is once again in the eye of a partisan firestorm — just a month after facing accusations that his indictment of former President Donald Trump was no more than a political witch hunt. This time conservatives like The New York Young Republican Club are blasting Bragg’s decision to charge former Marine Daniel Penny with involuntary manslaughter for putting a homeless man with a history of mental illness in a fatal chokehold. “We will not be silent as Bragg builds his political credentials on the back of patriotic Americans,” the GOP group said in a pitch for Penny’s legal defense fund. Bragg, a progressive who was elected in 2021 on the promise of reducing the number of bail eligible crimes, could have gotten whiplash from the Republican attacks that came after critics on the left slammed the new D.A. for not charging Penny sooner. Much as the right did with the Trump charges, some Republican leaders have cast Bragg as a puppet of liberal billionaire George Soros because his campaign for office took funding from a group that had received support from the wealthy businessman. “We must defeat the Soros-Funded DAs, stop the Left's pro-criminal agenda, and take back the streets for law abiding citizens,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis tweeted late Friday. “We stand with Good Samaritans like Daniel Penny.” We’ll be watching to see just how far the right will take Penny’s plight. Might House Republicans hold another “field hearing” in Manhattan to evaluate Bragg’s so-called “pro-crime” policies like they did with Trump? If they don’t, Penny will still be a convenient vehicle to hammer Democrats as weak on public safety, an issue the GOP hopes to use to replicate its success in last year’s midterms in 2024. For his part, Bragg’s not taking the bait. A spokesperson for the D.A. simply referred Playbook to a sober, past statement saying the office would “be constrained from speaking outside the courtroom to ensure this remains a fair and impartial matter.” |  | From the Capitol | | |  May 15, 2023 - Albany, NY - Governor Kathy Hochul signs legislation to strengthen the healthcare workforce. (Mike Groll/Office of Governor Kathy Hochul) | Mike Groll/Office of Governor Kathy Hochul | WINE IN GROCERY STORES: The fight over allowing wine in grocery stores is well-aged at the state Capitol, but now lawmakers are again pushing for the long-stalled measure before the legislative session ends next month. And they have a refined bill they hope can quell opposition from liquor stores who have successfully corked a decades-long push by grocery stores to let them sell wine as 40 other states allow. Read more here: Lawmakers once again look to uncork wine in grocery stores NURSING SHORTAGE: Gov. Kathy Hochul signed on Monday afternoon legislation to strengthen New York's health care workforce by providing expedited training for nursing students to let them enter the market earlier. The new law will permit nursing students to complete up to one third of the clinical training required through simulation experiences. Hochul expects that this measure will help decrease the nursing shortage New York is facing, which is projected to raise to 40,000 employees by 2030. "I'm proud to sign legislation strengthening our health care workforce expediting training and allowing more capable nurses into the workforce improving care for all and creating a safer, healthier New York," Hochul said. — Eleonora Francica REMAINING HOPES FOR HOUSING: Hochul acknowledged on Monday that significant action on housing in the remaining four weeks of session is unlikely, with “the same forces that were divided on the correct approach” before the subject fell out of her budget remaining “very real.” But she left open the possibility there would be at least some action on “low-hanging fruit” before 2024. “Office conversions can be achieved,” she said as one example. “I think that’s something they could certainly do, it’s not that controversial. It’s expensive to do those, but look at the opportunities we have with the vacant space in midtown.” –Bill Mahoney
| | From City Hall | | | | 
The campaign for Eric Adams was fined Monday. | Mary Altaffer/AP Photo | FINE AND PUNISHMENT: The city’s Campaign Finance Board fined Mayor Eric Adams $19,600 on Monday for three infractions related to the mayor’s transition committee, which raised $1.9 million to help set up his administration before he officially took office at the beginning of 2022. Adams gave $800,000 of that sum back after canceling his inauguration over Covid-19 concerns, but the CFB’s gumshoes still found fault with the mayor’s bookkeeping. Adams was dinged $5,000 for accepting prohibited donations — anyone who appears on a list of people who do business with the city cannot give to a transition committee — from five individuals. The committee was fined $14,400 for failing to respond to several requests for information from the board, and $200 for not winding down the committee by the deadline in the spring of last year. “Out of more than $2 million raised from nearly a thousand New Yorkers, a handful of contributions were flagged, which the inauguration committee returned … These fines are essentially just late fees for responding appropriately to the Campaign Finance Board,” Evan Thies, spokesperson for the committee, said in a statement. — Joe Anuta BUDGET UPDATE: The City’s Independent Budget Office said Monday it expects city finances to remain stable in the short term, with concerning gaps in the out years. “IBO’s analysis of the Mayor’s Executive Budget supports cautious optimism about the short‐term fiscal health of the city, but notes that increasing budget gaps in fiscal years 2025 through 2027 will pose challenges to the city as it continues to recover from disruptions triggered by the COVID‐19 pandemic,” the organization wrote in a new analysis of the mayor’s executive budget, which was released last month. In short, the IBO expects tax revenue to be $2.1 million more than expected this year, which will help balance the upcoming budget. After that, however, the city is projected to have multi-billion budget gaps beginning in 2025. And ongoing asylum seeker costs, the end of federal Covid-19 funding and the specter of an economic downturn are all expected to add more strain to the city’s purse strings. — Joe Anuta
| | On The Beats | | | | 
Axel Coronado, center, listen to a conversation between brothers Leonardo Oviedo, left, and Angel Mota, Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2022. Coronado has been staying at a New York City shelter after fleeing Venezuela to escape his country's regime and to seek a better a life in the United States. (AP Photo/Bobby Caina Calvan) | Bobby Caina Calvan/AP Photo | | SHELTERS: New York City could save up to $27,990 per homeless family with children if it repealed a rule that requires them to remain in the shelter system for 90 days before they can apply for city rental vouchers, according to a new report from the shelter provider Win. An analysis from Win found vouchers — at $72 per night for a typical family of three — cost significantly less than traditional shelters and emergency hotel shelters, which cost $188 and $383 per night, respectively. The report noted that it costs more to house a family in an emergency hotel shelter for a year than to pay for a CityFHEPS voucher for a two-bedroom apartment for five years. “For decades, the 90-Day Rule has arbitrarily kept New Yorkers in shelter far longer than they should be — but right now, the City has a chance to end this illogical barrier,” Christine Quinn, president and CEO of Win, said in a statement. “As we continue to rise to the challenge of supporting asylum seekers and caring for all homeless New Yorkers, getting rid of the 90-Day Rule could be key to increasing shelter capacity and reducing the strain on New York City’s budget.” — Janaki Chadha EDUCATION: The city will need to provide an additional $4.1 billion in city funds over the financial plan for the Department of Education budget, according to a new report by the New York City Independent Budget Office. The city will need to provide $153 million for the current year, $574 million in 2024, $928 million in 2025 and $1.2 billion in both 2026 and 2027. The shortfalls in 2023 and 2024 are driven by additional expenditures for Carter Cases, when parents sue the city for tuition reimbursement. Shortfalls in the education budget in 2025, 2026 and 2027 are also related to the city’s dependence on Covid-19 federal stimulus funds that IBO “anticipates will continue past the funds’ exhaustion.” IBO estimates that the city will need to provide an extra $5 million for the DOE budget in the current year, $285 million in 2024, more than $600 million in 2025 and $881 million annually in 2026 and 2027. “The city has used stimulus funds to pay for programs that are likely to continue beyond the funds’ expiration, including Summer Rising, contracted nursing services, Pathways to Graduation, pre‐school special education, mental health counseling, and others,” the report states. — Madina Touré EDUCATION BUDGET: The state’s 731 school districts will for the first time see a fully-funded foundation aid, and $34.5 billion in school aid all together, but the Education Department says some things are missing, POLITICO’s Katelyn Cordero reports. Education Commissioner Betty Rosa said items such as funding for a study of the foundation aid formula — used to divvy up the state’s school aid — and a study of the system for the state’s universal pre-kindergarten program were absent in the final budget. The Board of Regents also requested funding for prior year claims, expansion of BOCES aid, and funding for new IT equipment, 150 positions and the cost of contractual increases. — Katelyn Cordero HEALTH CARE: Nearly 300 resident physicians at Flushing and Jamaica Hospitals canceled a planned five-day strike after clinching a contract deal overnight, just hours before they planned to walk out on the job. The tentative agreement features an 18 percent wage increase over three years, enforceable patient caps, hazard pay, up to six weeks of paid family and medical leave, additional pay for extra shifts and restrictions on so-called “out-of-title” work that does not fall within their normal scope of responsibilities as doctors. But a potential strike is still brewing elsewhere in Queens. Another 170 resident doctors at NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst are planning to commence a five-day strike Monday if they cannot reach a deal before then with their employer, Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine. — Maya Kaufman
| | — Via Times Union: “Bethlehem High will lock up cellphones next year in bid to make students socialize.” — A new highly contagious skin infection hit New York City. (WNYC) — “A Crumbling New York Garage Collapsed. Dozens More Have Similar Problems,” The New York Times reports. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook family Playbook | Playbook PM | California Playbook | Florida Playbook | Illinois Playbook | Massachusetts Playbook | New Jersey Playbook | New York Playbook | Brussels Playbook | London Playbook View all our political and policy newsletters | | Follow us | | | | |  |
