Some things on Chirlane's wunnerful record on financial accountability in her nepotism job before coronavirus

There’s Too Much Money in Chirlane McCray’s Hands

By Bob McManus of NYPost.com, via Manhattan Institute website, March 28

Mayor Bill de Blasio likes to say that there’s plenty of money in New York City, but that it’s in the wrong hands.

Chirlane McCray’s, perhaps?

The first spouse went before the City Council Tuesday — tripping spectacularly over her own tongue while removing any doubt that her billion-dollar husbandly indulgence, ThriveNYC, amounts to an epic public policy swindle gussied up as a mental health program.

Still, questions linger.

Such as, how did it happen that Thrive burned through more $565 million over four-plus years to no appreciable good effect with nobody noticing?

Certainly not the City Council, a legislative body comprising 50 stuffed cabbages and a speaker who wants to be mayor — a fellow who stood by incuriously as the city’s streets and subways slowly filled with insane people, many of them threatening and dangerous.

The council redeemed itself only slightly Tuesday, asking McCray — too politely for the circumstances — to explain herself, and then settling for a non-answer answer for the ages: [....]

With opaque budget and elusive metrics, $850M ThriveNYC program attempts a reset

By Amanda Eisenberg @ Politico.com, Updated 02/27/2019 05:14 PM EST

Since its inception in 2015, ThriveNYC — the city's sprawling $850 million initiative to address a variety of mental health issues — has operated without much scrutiny or accountability.

With few public metrics by which to measure its success so far, and the broad strokes used by city officials to describe its operations, the city has offered little insight into how it has assessed Thrive's efficacy since it began.

And because Thrive encompasses a variety of initiatives — some new, some already in existence — across more than a dozen agencies, it is difficult to establish a central, line-item budget delineating how the city is spending taxpayer dollars on the program.

POLITICO spoke to more than 16 people, including elected officials, advocates, representatives of community organizations, researchers and consultants who said that although it is crucial for the city to invest in mental health resources, they did not know whether Thrive was successful and said the city has an obligation to publicize its numbers and how it compares to the goals it set out to accomplish. Some requested anonymity for fear of retaliation while others were more vocal in their critiques.

Run by the mayor’s wife and closest adviser, Chirlane McCray, ThriveNYC sought to tackle issues like substance use, depression and suicide. It is meant to target low-income individuals who are often priced out of mental health care because those services are typically not covered by insurance. Thrive also is meant to focus on communities — African Americans, Latinos, military veterans — who are less likely to seek care for mental health problems.

POLITICO filed a records request for the program's line-item budget in October 2018, but the city has twice requested an extension. Two budget breakdowns acquired by POLITICO — one from City Hall and one from the Independent Budget Office — show significant differences in spending.

The City Hall budget shows $594 million in spending since ThriveNYC’s inception. The IBO budget shows $816 million. Both City Hall and IBO suspect the Office of Management and Budget included fewer programs in the City Hall version, accounting for the difference. But the budget discrepancies illustrate the difficulty in tracking Thrive [....]