Testimony of Amy Loprest

Executive Director

New York City Campaign Finance Board

City Council Committees on Governmental Operations and Finance

May 13, 2016

Good afternoon, Chair Kallos and Chair Ferreras-Copeland, and committee members. I am Amy Loprest, Executive Director of the New York City Campaign Finance Board (CFB). I am joined today by Eric Friedman, Assistant Executive Director for Public Affairs, and Kitty Chan, Chief of Staff.

I want to thank the Council for your support of the Campaign Finance Program and the opportunity to testify today. While most of the political world is focused on the presidential election, the CFB is starting to ramp up for the 2017 municipal election. Next year’s full citywide election will be the eighth conducted under the city’s public matching funds program. Our budget for fiscal year 2017 reflects our commitment to provide candidates a better experience when they run for city office, and provide New Yorkers with better tools to help them cast an informed vote.

CFB staff is engaged in an across-the-board effort to improve the technology we make available for use by candidates, voters, and the general public. Our Systems staff is working on upgrades to C-SMART, which as you know is the platform candidates use to organize their financial data and provide disclosure to the CFB. The upgrades will provide an improved user experience, an upgraded back end to speed transaction time, and a more seamless interface for candidates to provide their information for the CFB’s Voter Guide.

We are continuing development on our NYC Votes Contribute platform, for online credit card fundraising, which connects with C-SMART and is available to all city candidates. To date, 29 candidates have started accounts, and they’ve raised more than $17,000 through the platform. We encourage candidates who want to fundraise online to sign up.  

We are enhancing disclosure software for independent spenders, and later this year we will unveil improved disclosure resources for the CFB’s website, including a new searchable database, and enhanced candidate profile pages in future phases.

This multiyear initiative to improve our technology and prepare for the 2017 election year is proceeding as we work on completing enforcement for the 2013 election cycle. We are meeting the deadlines set by the Campaign Finance Act to complete the post-election audits, and matching the pace we set following the 2009 elections. Our review of the audits shows that the majority of candidates are successfully navigating our system, and their campaigns have been in substantial compliance with the Act and Rules. To date, 60 percent of the audits that have gone before the Board contained no penalties, and more than 70 percent of all candidates finish with penalties of $1,000 or less. 

Our staff has expanded our work informing and engaging voters. For this year, we partnered with Maplight, a nonpartisan research organization, on a co-branded Voter’s Edge NY voter guide featuring the candidates in the April 19^th presidential primary and special elections. We will continue this partnership to provide information on candidates for state and federal offices that are not currently covered by the CFB’s city Voter Guide.

As you know, we also had an incredibly successful Student Voter Registration Day in March. In partnership with the Council, the Department of Education, and New York Immigration Coalition, we registered 8,500 students in high schools across the city.

And finally, we just celebrated Voter Day in Albany on May 3^rd. We collected 6,500 petition signatures in support of the Vote Better NY reform campaign, and we brought nearly 200 citizen volunteers from New York City and around the state to meet with 74 legislators at the state capital to advocate for election laws that better serve voters.

The Board’s fiscal year 2017 budget is $16.2 million and is attached to this testimony. Pursuant to the New York City Charter, Section 1052(c), the Board submitted its budget for City Fiscal Year 2017 to the Mayor on March 10, 2016, and it was included in the Executive Budget.

The increased personal services budget reflects increased staff salaries as a result of union contract settlements, as well as additional staff needed for the election year. Labor unions representing staff in our office settled contract negotiations for the period between 2011 and 2016. These salary increases were mentioned in our testimony last year, but our FY2016 personal services budget request did not reflect the cost of those negotiated salary increases, because the contracts had not yet been finalized.

Additionally, we are making new hires as we increase staff in preparation for the election year. We are hiring a new audit team, which will improve one of the agency’s core functions. We are also hiring six additional seasonal employees for the election year to assist with technology improvements and help with the production of our voter guide.

Some funds will also go towards hiring computer consultants on a number of projects, including development on the next phase of the NYC Votes Contribute tool, and building capacity for our Candidate Services Unit to conduct video trainings. Furthermore, our budget request accounts for expected overtime for CFB employees during the election year.

Our budget request for the Voter Guide reflects that we are starting work this year on design enhancements to ensure the 2017 Voter Guide contains even more relevant information, presented in the clearest, most compelling format. The guide is an important resource for millions of New Yorkers, and we are committed to ensuring it best serves the needs of all voters so that they can cast an informed ballot.

Another point of consideration is legislation pending before the City Council, Int. No. 988, that would allow voters to opt out of receiving the print voter guide if they prefer to receive their Guides electronically. While this is not reflected in this budget submission, if this bill should be enacted, we will need to make an initial investment of resources to create the system that allows voters to opt out of the mailing.

As we look forward to the 2017 elections, both the Board and CFB staff will continue working to ensure that we can help more candidates run for city office and give more New Yorkers the opportunity to make their voices heard. The City Council’s long-standing commitment to the Campaign Finance Program has helped it grow into a national model for how public matching funds programs can counteract the influence of big money and empower more everyday people in the political process. Thank you for your time, and I am happy to answer any questions. 

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