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Duties per Power by Agency

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Visuals in this post: Duties per power Types of powers New duties vs. staffing Powers and duties by year
data.nycuriosity.com › Legislation Trackers Update › Duties per Power by Agency
Substack post September 2026

Duties per power, by agency

The Council writes two kinds of provisions into local law: duties, which an agency must carry out, and powers, which it may use. This chart compares the two for the ten agencies granted the most powers since 2014.

DOB gets a power for every two duties the Council assigns it; DOT and DOHMH get one for every 4.6

Duties per power for the ten agencies granted the most powers in local laws enacted February 2014 to September 2026. Counts at right.

Source: NYCuriosity Powers tracker and Obligations tracker, local laws enacted Feb 2014 to Sep 2026. Note: The Office of the Mayor groups many mayoral offices. Provisions that name no agency (52 duties, 13 powers) are excluded.

The city's licensing and enforcement agencies, DOB, DCWP and HPD, receive one power for every two duties, most of it rulemaking and inspection authority. DOHMH and DOT receive one for every 4.6, and the Mayor's Office one for every 5.8.

Method: Each local law enacted since 2014 is read by Claude Sonnet 5 (Anthropic), and each provision is sorted as a duty or a power by the model's label and by a fixed rule in code. Counts as of September 29 2026. Full methodology.