Release #552-97

Contact: Colleen Roche/Jack Deacy (212) 788-2958

MAYOR GIULIANI RELEASES THE MAYOR'S MANAGEMENT REPORT (MMR) FOR FISCAL YEAR 1997

-City Is Safer, Cleaner And Economically Stronger Than 1993-
-Public School System Shows Improvement-
-Welfare Rolls Are Down More Than 300,000-

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani today released the Mayor's Management Report (MMR) for Fiscal Year 1997, which covers the period July 1, 1996 through June 30, 1997, and for selected programs, through August 30, 1997. The Report, which is published twice a year, provides New Yorkers with an objective report card on how the City is being managed and how City services are being delivered.

Among the Report's highlights:

• Since 1993 major felony crimes have declined to their lowest levels in nearly three decades, and crime has decreased dramatically in every precinct in the City;
• Civilian fire fatalities are at the lowest level in 38 years;
• EMS ambulance response times to life-threatening medical emergencies are the lowest in nine years;
• For the first time, all of the City's 59 Sanitation Districts were rated clean; 92% of the City's Parks were rated acceptably clean;
• The largest single improvement in reading scores in a decade was recorded during the 1996-97 school year, and math scores also continued to improve.
• The number of public assistance recipients has decreased by more than 300,000 since March 1995; and
• Private sector employment has increased by 170,000 jobs since June 1993.

"When the people of New York elected me to lead the City four years ago, I pledged that I would improve public safety, strengthen the City's economy, and improve the public school system," Mayor Giuliani said. "When you read this report, particularly when you look at the multi-year trends, you will see a City that is dramatically safer, an economy that has a stronger private sector, a leaner, better managed public sector, and a public education system that is performing better than it has in years. The welfare rolls are down dramatically, streets and parks are cleaner, and we have created 170,000 new private sector jobs. As New Yorkers, we can be proud of these accomplishments and look to the future knowing that the City is moving in the right direction."

PUBLIC SAFETY New York City continues to achieve dramatic decreases in crime, including a 44% decrease in major felonies and a 60% decrease in murder from January-June in FY 93 compared to the same period in FY97. During this time, every borough experienced an overall crime reduction of at least 40%, with individual precinct declines ranging from 27% to 55%.

The City's domestic violence initiative continues to produce significant results, with family violence arrests increasing by 82% from January-June FY93 compared to the same period in 1997. Narcotics arrests rose 56% over the same period.

Since the merger of the Emergency Medical Services into the Fire Department and the expansion of First Responder Program, the City's ability to respond to medical emergencies has improved significantly. Between FY 96 and FY 97, ambulance response times to life threatening medical emergencies decreased from 8 minutes and 58 seconds to 8 minutes and 14 seconds, the lowest in at least nine years. When responses from the Department's Certified First Responder Companies are included, the response time for FY 1997 is 7 minutes and 6 seconds, a decrease of 50 seconds from FY 1996. Much of the decrease in the response time is attributable to the merger, which allowed EMS to increase its average number of tours per day by 12%.

The number of structural fires decreased more than 9% from FY 1996 to FY 1997, while the number of civilian fire fatalities decreased 46% from FY 89 to FY 97. The number of fire-related fatalities fell to 149, the lowest since Calendar Year (CY) 1959. The response time to structural fires also decreased in every borough from FY 96 to FY 97.

CLEANLINESS OF STREETS AND PARKS FY 1997 saw a dramatic improvement in the cleanliness of the City's streets. For the first time in the 23 years that street cleanliness ratings have been measured, all of the City's 59 Sanitation Districts were rated clean. In FY 96, 27 Sanitation Districts in the City were rated clean.

The cleanliness of the City's parks also improved, with 92% being rated acceptably clean in FY 97, compared to 74% in FY 94. The number of parks found to have acceptable graffiti ratings also improved to 97% in FY 97, as compared to 84% in FY 94. The overall condition ratings, which include capital conditions, showed an increase from 42% acceptable in FY 94 to 64% acceptable in FY 97, the highest rating since the inception of the rating system in Spring 1992.

EDUCATION The public school system made progress in the 1996 - 97 school year. The percent of students reading at or above grade level improved from 43.7 % in the 1995-96 school year to 47.3% in the 1996-97 school year. This represented the largest single year improvement in reading performance in a decade. Reading scores also improved in every Community School District.

Over the same period, students at or above grade level for mathematics improved from 58.5% to 60.4%. As enrollment continued to grow, so did the Administration's commitment to adding new seats for the students. During school years 1994-1997, 74,772 new students joined the system and 80,011 new seats were added. During the previous four years, 78,000 new children were enrolled but only 19,444 new seats were added to the system.

HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES Since FY 93, the Health and Hospital's Corporation (HHC) has made a dramatic management turnaround, enabling HHC to compete in a managed care environment. Changes from FY 93 to FY 97 include a 13% decrease in Emergency Room visits, a 38.8% increase in primary care visits, clinic visits increased by 11.9%, the daily general care census dropped by 20% , and Managed Care enrollment increased 641.9%. All eleven HHC acute care hospitals received three-year accreditations, compared to FY 91-93 when only five HHC hospitals received accreditations, and six were given conditional or delayed accreditations. For the first time in the Corporation's 26-year history, it ended FY 96 with a positive balance of $143.4 million.

During the past four years, the City has seen considerable improvement in public health indicators. From FY 93-96, new tuberculosis cases decreased by 36.5%. Sexually transmitted disease cases declined 6% from CY 93 to CY 96. New AIDS cases declined 27% from in CY 93 to CY 96 and, after years of increases, deaths from HIV/AIDS have declined 29% from CY 95 to CY 96. In CY 96, the number of infant deaths fell below 1,000 for the first time since the City began collecting such data 100 years ago.

From March 1995 to August 1997, the City has undergone a 26.3% reduction in the number of public assistance recipients, a decline of more than 300,000 persons from the rolls. During FY 97, over 52,000 recipients reported that they had found paid employment, nearly 40% more than the previous year. By the end of FY 97, the Work Experience Program included 38,286 participants.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT During the past four years, the City's economy has improved significantly. Private sector employment increased by more than 170,000 jobs from June 1993 to June 1997, the highest annual rate of growth for any four-year period in the City's history, while public sector employment decreased by more than 49,000. Within City government, 22,000 positions were eliminated between December 1993 and June 1997.

Targeted initiatives, including the elimination of organized crime from the City's commercial carting industry and the Fulton Fish Market , have made the City a more attractive place to do business. Commercial waste collection costs have decreased by 40% while the real price (adjusted for inflation) of fish at the Fulton Fish Market has decreased 11.2%.

TRANSPORTATION Transportation improvements included the reduction of the large backlog of engineering studies conducted by the Department of Transportation (DOT) to approve traffic signals in neighborhoods, from 872 in January 1996 to 120 in June 1997; an increase in signal installation from 63 in FY 96 to 331 in FY 97; an expansion of the Adopt-a Highway Program which now includes 69% of the City's highway system, and achieving 100% of DOT's timeliness standards for the repair of traffic signals and priority regulatory signs and 98% for the repair of street lights.

Copies of the Mayor's Management Report are available for members of the press from the Mayor's Press Office at City Hall.

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