PREPARED STATEMENT OF STEPHEN WERNER REGARDING INT. 1015-2015, February 22, 2016 My name is Stephen Werner. I am here to present my personal comments, observations and recommendations regarding the bill being considered by the Council. ?Nothing i am going to say represents the position or comments of my employer, the City of New York, Department of Housing Preservation and Development, where have worked for the last 23 years Thank you for inviting me to speak. Having a place to live is a necessity, not a luxury item. Political economist George Stiglitz in his recent book on inequality explains that some people use political influence and "asymmetric information? for their personal financial gain. He uses the example of insider trading. Controlling and manipulating information regarding government-sponsored housing in is another area where we have seen the same techniques in play. At this point let me skip over my education and past experience and go directly to the topic at hand. (i was born and raised in New York City. resided here until I graduated from college. I attended the minor seminary for the Diocese of Brooklyn for my high school years and first two years of college. i finished my last two years at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York in 1967. graduated from the State University of New York at Buffalo with a Masters in Social Work in 1969. And I graduated from the State University of New York at Albany with a in Economics in 1978. have worked for the Brownsville Community Council, the New York State Department of Labor Manpower Administration, the Vera Institute ofJustice, the Health and Hospitals Corporation and the New York City Human Resources Administration. have worked for the economic consulting firms of Mathematica Policy Research, in New Jersey and Stanley Ruttenberg and Associates in Washington DC. As a private consultant, have worked for government agencies administering employment and training programs and health care programs. have been a paid consultant to the Commonwealth, of Massachusetts, the Harvard School of Public Health and the American Academy of Pediatrics. Some of the work I have done has resulted in publications? by the Government Printing Office, in the journals of Pediatrics, Medical Care, an in a text book "Advances in Health Care Economics?. Copies of these are included in an appendix. have also taught graduate school classes in computer applications, statistics and budget and finance. in November 1992 i started working for the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development on the Housing and Vacancy Survey. My main responsibility has been to process computerized lists of building with rent regulated apartments. Among the lists are those from the state - rent regulated apartments and from the city - 151 and 421a tax exempt rentals.) in what follows I discuss three issues involving the proposed bill where I see that my experiences in computer systems analysis and application development, as well as knowledge of the way city and state data system work, maybe helpful. First i will talk about what is publically available knowledge regarding allowable reasons for exemptions in buildings receiving tax exemptions. Next i will discuss the matter of identifying "Program Names? in the HPD data currently available through the city Public Law 44? Open Data portal. And lastly i will provide comments and recommendations for possible improvements in the data collection and dissemination of information collected through the proposed portal. Exemptions Section 26? 1201 identifies definitions used in the chapter. in both the definition of affordable unit and rent?regulated unit, there is reference to the exemption reason - ?occupancy by the superintendent of the building?. The allowable reasons for exempting an apartment from rent regulation in the case oflSl and 421a tax exempt properties includes such a reason - provision for a building superintendent. An allowable exemption is also made for an owner occupied unit. There is no allowable exemption reason forthe rent level in the case of apartments in buildings with J51 or 421a tax exemptions. The state has only recently started looking apartment level data in terms of exemption reasons. They have only accepted, as is, the data entered by owners. They have found thousands of cases where invalid reasons were given. such as high rent in buildings receiving 151 or 421a exemptionsTWown estimate of the scope of this problem, as explained on the About page of my website, is?tzhat the number may exceed 100,000. See the attachment. (As I understand my legal counsel, i am prohibited from mentioning any examples of dis?allowed reasons that are not among those already made public.) 50 it may be premature to assume that a building included in the HPD affordable housing database represents a "vetted" property for enrolling households at this time ifJSl or 421a tax exemptions are involved. Program Names Section 26- 1202 introduces the term Covered Programs. Let me preface my comments by saying that I hope andl assume that all the data collected through the proposed portal will be made available through the Public Law 44 Open Data portal. On that assumption, in preparation for these hearings, have looked at the HPD data currently available through the Open Data portal. have attached a (Open Data) with screens showing the HPD files at the site and screens showing the initial records and field names in one of the tables. See the attachments. The only table with afield I found having a similar name to Covered Programs was the Project Table which has a field named - Program Names. The attachment also includes a cross tabulation showing the number of units in all proiects in the Proiect Table under all the categories for the field - Program Names. Looking at the cross tabulation of all HPD projects and all programs, my observation is that the number of programs (35) and the number of units (50,000) is low even though the file is dated mid?2015. suggest that Council staff overseeing the design and implementation of the affordability portal make sure that both the Council members and HPD are talking about the same thing when they use the term - Program Names. Reports and Evaluation Finally, there is great potential, in my opinion, for the affordability portal to generate valuable information for those who want to know where their tax payer dollars, and money from other sources, is going. For one, would suggest the bill include some specifications for generating summary statistics on how many households and persons are being enrolled in different boroughs, sub-borough areas, and even Census tracts. Second, the data would permit, and the bill could require, publication of projections in the l_o_s_s_ of affordable units over time as tax benefits expire. For the (low income housing tax credit) program the benefit period is 15 years. For 4213 rentals there are numerous time periods. Third, the database could help produce information on households who are no longer eligible for a reduced rent at their current locations because of, for example, the expiration of tax benefits. What happens to them? Do they stay where they are and see their rent go from 30 to 60 percent of their income? Do they wind up in a shelter or on the street? (lam omitting another important topic of discussion - tenant income validation - because of time constraints.) Thank you again for inviting me to testify at these hearings. will be happy to help the committee again at a later time. This concludes my prepared statement. Attachments: Open Data Contains screens from Public Law 44 Open Data portal showing HPD tables, fields and record counts relevant in terms of the affordability portal. Website The site name is - . This is my website on registered and unregistered 151 and 421 tax exempt rentals. i built it for viewing before the 2015 Rent Stabilization Law were passed. hoped that the issue of unregistered buildings and tax exempt units would be addressed before the legislation was passed. Publications Published material including a study complete for the US. Copyright Office. In the study I looked at confidential data of the Federal Communications Commission on the profit and losses of radio and television broadcasters who claimed they could not pay additional royalties for airplay of sound recordings. They claimed their profit margins were too thin. Also in a text book on Health Care Economics, there is an article with a description of a computer system developed for administering a federally funded Medicaid managed care program demonstration program in Suffolk County New York. con?nued New York City This is the report that was hired to work on starting in 1992. The latest report is Housing and for 2011. There is no work being done at this time to produce a report based on the Vacancy Report 2014 survey. Starting in 2008, the agency cut back on funding for the printing of the report and eliminated entirely the graphics unit that used to assist in the production of the report. For the 2011 report, used Visual Basic for Word to create the pdf. The was then reproduced and packaged for distribution by the City?wide publishing contractor Vanguard .