Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg today released the Preliminary Mayor's Management Report (PMMR) for Fiscal Year 2007. The PMMR provides a snapshot of how the City performed four months into the fiscal year, and forecasts expected levels of service based on the City's Preliminary Budget. The report shows continued strong performance in the delivery of city services. Vital services were largely maintained or improved during the reporting period, and performance for FY 2008 is projected to look much the same as in the current fiscal year.

"The indicators shown in the PMMR demonstrate that we are continuing to build on five years of successful policies and are moving the City in the right direction," said Mayor Bloomberg. "The range of performance measures captured in this report reflect city government's efforts to be more efficient and more responsive to the needs of citizens and improve on areas of importance to New Yorkers."

In addition to agency performance statistics, the PMMR shows information generated by the 311 Citizen Service Center, which has transformed the way City residents interact with government. Calls to 311 rose to more than 4.4 million, a 7% increase, during the first four months of FY 2007 compared with the same period last year.

The following highlights some of the preliminary results shown in the FY 2007 PMMR. Unless otherwise noted, the trends described below compare July-October 2005 to July-October 2006.

Public Safety

• Homicides decreased slightly: Murders decreased from 209 to 207 during the reporting period.

• Major felony crime decreased in transit and public housing: Major felony crime in the transit system fell by 4%, from 999 to 955. The success of ongoing crime reduction strategies led to a continued drop in major felony crime in public housing developments, from 1,834 to 1,821.

• Police Department responded more quickly to crimes in progress: Response times to crimes in progress averaged 7 minutes and 6 seconds, improving by 24 seconds.

• Response times to structural fires were faster: Citywide response times to structural fires averaged 7 seconds faster at 4 minutes 30 seconds.

• Medical emergency response times were faster: Ambulances responded to life-threatening medical emergencies 6 seconds faster, for an average of 6 minutes 36 seconds. Fire units' response to these emergencies was 13 seconds faster, for an average of 4 minutes 24 seconds.

• Civilian fire fatalities decreased: Civilian fire fatalities went down by one to 21.

• Traffic fatalities declined: Traffic deaths decreased from 130 to 115.

• The Office of Emergency Management trained more people: More than 5,200 individuals (government employees, residents and businesses) participated in OEM-sponsored training programs, almost twice as much as the 2,800 individuals trained last period.

Quality of Life

• Calls to 311 continued to rise: Calls to the 311 Citizen Service Center rose by 7%, totaling more than 4.4 million calls. The most frequent requests for service or information included noise complaints, curbside removal of appliances with Freon and CFC (chlorofluorocarbon) gas, and requests for bus or subway information.

• Street cleanliness ratings at an all-time high: Four months into the fiscal year, the City reached a new level of street cleanliness with 93.8% of City streets rated acceptably clean, compared to 92.9% for the same months of the previous year and 93.1% at the end of the FY2006.

• Recycling tonnage and diversion rates declined: The recycling diversion rate and tons recycled per day declined 3.2 percentage points and 14 percent, respectively, due to the continued decline in mixed paper put out for recycling collection; a reduction in the recycling of metal, glass and plastic; and a decrease in clean fill material and reusable construction material used for landfill cover and access roads at the Fresh Kills Landfill.

• Pothole repairs increased: The number of pothole repairs went up 10% when compared to the same reporting period last year, from 36,942 to 40,468. All repairs were completed within 30 days.

• Parks condition ratings showed mixed results: Acceptability ratings for playground safety surfaces improved to 91% from 88%, and park cleanliness ratings held steady at 92%. However, the Department of Parks and Recreation did not meet its goals for overall condition ratings and for playground equipment rated acceptable.

• Tree maintenance work was close to or better than target levels: The Department of Parks and Recreation's block-by-block pruning program pruned 10,535 trees, up from 9,828. The percentage of trees removed within 30 days, dipped to 93% from 97%. Performance was impacted by an increase in the number of emergencies resulting from a busy storm season.

• Response times to air and noise complaints show significant improvement: The Department of Environmental Protection responded to 86% of air complaints and 85% of noise complaints not requiring property access within seven days, compared to 68% and 78%, respectively, during the comparable prior year reporting period.

• More water and sewer bills are based on actual usage: Although still short of its target of 15%, the percent of bills for water and sewer charges based on estimated consumption decreased from 19.5% to 17.6%. The Department of Environmental Protection introduced three measures in the Preliminary Mayor's Management Report on the amount and age of its accounts receivables for water and sewer charges.

• Fewer affordable housing units were started but annual goal will be met: Under the New Housing Marketplace Plan construction started on 3,120 units, or 18% of the annual goal. Construction was completed on 2,643 units, comparable to the 2,667 completed during the prior reporting period.

• A record number of housing violations were corrected and removed: Initiatives by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development led to the correction and removal of more than 257,000 violations, nearly 118,000 more than were removed during the comparable prior year reporting period.

• More building complaints were responded to in a timely manner: Despite the continued growth in the number of emergency complaints, the Department of Buildings exceeded its target, responding to 97% of these complaints within one and half days. The percent of non-emergency complaints responded to within the established timeliness standard improved from 85.2% to 93.4%, partly due to a decrease in the number of reported non-emergency problems.

Education

• Class sizes continued to fall: The proportion of students in classes of 29 or more in grades 1-3 fell from 1.4% to 1.2%. Class sizes were smaller at every level from kindergarten through eighth grade except for 1st grade for the reporting period.

• School safety incidents rose: Major felony crime in the City's public schools increased 21 percent compared to the low levels attained during the same period in Fiscal 2006. The increase is attributed to two factors: an increase of five days in the number of school days falling within the reporting period, and a rise in grand larceny reports. At the same time, robberies declined by 29 percent. It should also be noted that through January there was a continued reduction in violent crime at 15 schools that were transitioned out of Impact status since the program began. Violent crime at these schools fell an additional 16% after dropping 45% last year. Two schools, Christopher Columbus High School in the Bronx and Norman Thomas High School in Manhattan, will be transitioned off of the Impact list because of reductions in crime.

• Attendance rates increased: Elementary and middle grade attendance increased from 93.2% for September-October of 2005 to 93.9% for the same months of 2006. High school attendance rose from 82.5% to 83.3% over the same period.

• Parent coordinators continued to provide more assistance: Parent coordinators assigned by the Department of Education to the public schools responded to 8,000 more phone calls during September-December 2006 than during the same time frame last year, and the number of parents assisted on a walk-in basis rose by 8%. Parent attendance at workshops arranged by the coordinators rose by 3%.

• The Department of Education's Five-Year Capital Plan remains on schedule: Although no new student seats were complete during the four-month reporting period, the Department of Education and the School Construction Authority expect to create 4,236 new seats in time for the start of the next school year in September 2007. In the following three years, 2008 through 2010, the Five-Year Plan calls for the creation of 51,500 total new seats for the respective September school openings.

Human Services

• New families entering the homeless shelter system increased, while new single adults entering the system dropped: The number of families entering the shelter system for the first time rose by 24%, but new entries declined by 6% for single adults. The average daily shelter census increased by nearly 8% for families and decreased by 6% for single adults. The Department of Homeless Services is closely monitoring the number of new families entering the system and is working with service providers, partner agencies, and the community to reverse the trend. The City's homelessness prevention program, HomeBase, successfully prevented 96% of families and 97% of adults who received services from entering the shelter system.

• Placements in permanent housing rose for homeless single adults but fell for families: Placements of homeless single adults in permanent housing rose by 31%, to 2,924, while family placements dropped by 10% to 2,142.

• Average Stay for Families in Shelter System fell: The Department of Homeless Services' Housing Stability Plus program helped reduce the average length of stay for families in the shelter system from 349 days to 323 days, reflecting the Department's focus on moving long-term clients to permanent placements as a means of combating chronic homelessness.

• Response time to child abuse reports improved: The proportion of child abuse and/or neglect reports responded to within 24 hours ticked upwards from 93.9% to 94.2%. In response to recent increases in abuse and neglect allegations, the Administration for Children's Services has increased hiring of caseworkers, managers and other frontline staff, enhanced training programs and implemented a new case tracking system. The City has also stressed a coordinated response to abuse and neglect reports, with more active cooperation among ACS, the Police Department, the Department of Education, and the medical community.

• The foster care population is near historically low levels: The foster care population averaged 16,827 for the reporting period. While the number of children in foster boarding homes rose slightly, more children were served in less restrictive environments, as the population of children in congregate foster care settings fell by 8% for the reporting period.

• There were fewer people on public assistance: The number of people receiving public assistance fell 7% to approximately 387,000. The number of public assistance recipients and applicants placed into jobs was down by 6%, paralleling the decrease in the public assistance caseload. At the same time, the number of recipients of food stamps and of public health insurance have each decreased slightly, though there was a nearly 8% increase in the number of food stamp recipients among persons not receiving public assistance or federal Supplemental Security Income.

• More assistance was available for domestic violence victims: Participants in the Human Resources Administration's non-residential domestic violence programs rose by 3%, to nearly 3,000 clients, and the number of emergency beds made available by HRA for domestic violence victims increased from 1,995 to 2,081.

• Day care complaints and inspections increased: The number of day care site complaints received by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene increased by 15%, to 583, while the number of sites inspected by the Department increased by more than 50% to 5,742.

• Hours of home care for seniors declined: The number of hours of home care services provided declined by 3%, as the cost per hour of providing these services rose by 6%. The Department for the Aging will provide technical assistance to a contracted provider to increase productivity in providing home care services.

• Processing times for seniors' rent increase exemptions remained near record lows: The average time to process applications for rent increase exemptions was 15 days, compared with an 18-day average during Fiscal 2005.

• The proportion of working families living in public housing was slightly higher: More than 43% of families in public housing residents are working families, up from 42.4%.

• Response times to maintenance complaints in public housing have generally improved: Emergencies, non-emergencies and heat complaints were resolved more quickly, exceeding new, more stringent performance targets. The average time to respond to elevator complaints also improved slightly from 6.3 to 6.2 hours, though response remains slower than the target of 5 hours.

Health

• New syphilis cases dropped, but more TB was seen: The number of syphilis cases fell by 10%. New tuberculosis cases increased by 4%, although preliminary data for all of Calendar 2006 show figures trending lower than the prior year.

• Childhood immunization rates remained high: 95.9% of public school children completed all required immunizations as of the end of October 2006, five percentage points higher than the year before.

• New cases of lead poisoning continued to decline: The number of new cases among children less than 18 years requiring environmental intervention for lead poisoning in accordance with Local Law 1 of 2004 decreased by 16 percent, from 379 to 318. Other indicators of lead poisoning cases continue to show similar improvement and illustrate the continued success of the Lead Poisoning Prevention Program.

• Pest control complaints declined overall: Rodent complaints have declined by 19%, a reversal of the growth in previous years. The citywide number of rodent exterminations performed has dropped as the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene shifts its emphasis to prevention and abatement activities in areas with the greatest need.

• Hospital services were provided more quickly: Better staff management and equipment upgrades reduced the average wait time for mammography screenings at Health and Hospitals Corporation facilities by 27.3 percent, to eight days. Enhanced case management helped reduce the average duration of outpatient primary care visits to less than an hour.

• Compliance with regulations prohibiting tobacco sales to minors was high: The percent of stores complying with regulations prohibiting the sale of tobacco products to minors increased to 87% from 84%, and the proportion of second time offenders fell from 17% to 10%.

Economy

• Citywide construction activity showed a moderate decrease for this reporting period: The number of building permit applications filed with the Department of Buildings fell by 5%, from 25,911 to 24,612. The average time to complete first reviews of plans was 2.2 days, considerably better than target and nearly one day faster than the previous reporting period.

• Workforce1 job-seeking registrants and placements increased: The number of clients registered for Workforce1 Career Center program services nearly doubled, and the number of job placements increased from 3,442 to 5,608.

• Unemployment continues to drop. During the first four months of Fiscal 2007 the City's unemployment rate fell to 4.8%, an improvement of almost one percentage point when compared to the same period of the prior year.