← nycuriosity/data

COGE Report

About Substack Support my work
data.nycuriosity.com › COGE Report
Government Efficiency August 2026

What Mamdani's Efficiency Commission Put on the Ballot

Mayor Mamdani convened the Commission on Government Efficiency in May 2026. It studied twelve areas of the City Charter, adopted its final report unanimously on July 23, and sent five questions to voters this November. These charts measure what each question would reach: contracting and payment, street safety and City land, building permits, and the reserves target. Plus the technology problem the Charter did not reach at all.

Featured in The City Reporter’s guide to the ballot proposals (Sep 2026)

5 Ballot questions on the November 2026 ballot
12 Charter areas studied in the preliminary report
387 Median days for a City RFP, FY2025
39% Contracts registered on time, FY2025

Charts in this post

Matrix
From Study to Ballot
COGE studied twelve areas of the City Charter and put five questions on the November ballot. This is where each area landed, including the technology chapter that became an appendix.
12 areas · 5 questions Explore →
Stacked Columns
Contract Timeliness
New York City registered 39% of its contracts before their start date last year, the best rate in five years. Vendors cannot be paid for work done before registration.
FY2021–FY2025 Explore →
Stacked Bars
Where the 387 Days Go
The median City RFP took 387 days end to end in FY2025. Evaluation and post-award review account for 234 of them, and the charter amendment touches neither.
FY2022–FY2025 · 5 phases Explore →
Ranked Bars
Cycle Time by Agency
Median RFP times run from 227 days at the Department for the Aging to 1,372 at the Office of Technology and Innovation, the agency that buys the City's technology.
18 agencies · FY2025 Explore →
Stacked Bars
Nonprofit Payment
Whether a human services nonprofit is paid on schedule turns on which agency hired it. On-time submission ran from 8% at Small Business Services to 93% at ACS.
10 agencies · FY2025 Explore →
Ranked Bars
Streets and City Land
Ballot Question 3. Three quarters of the City's 5,442 vacant lots are small enough for the new expedited review, but they hold only a twentieth of the vacant land.
Q3 · 5,442 lots Explore →
Ranked Bars
Building Permits
Ballot Question 4. A routine alteration permits in 15 days and a new building takes 166. The permits that produce housing wait eleven times longer than the ones that do not.
Q4 · FY2024–FY2025 Explore →
Columns
Rainy Day Fund
Ballot Question 5. A 12% reserves target works out to $9.8 billion against next year's tax base, roughly twice the revenue the City lost in the pandemic year.
Q5 · FY2017–FY2026 Explore →
Interactive Tool
Legislation Implementation Tracker
COGE counted roughly 1,000 reports a year across City agencies and left the fix to a future commission. The tracker counts the same burden from the law text: 864 reports due at least annually.
8,231 obligations Open tracker →