New York’s ‘COO’

Jackie Bray arrived at this month's Citizens Budget Commission breakfast to discuss her new role as New York's Director of State Operations. What's that mean? She essentially describes the role as being the state's "COO," or Chief of Operations.

Bray, with less than six months into the new job (replacing Kathryn Garcia, who left to head the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey), dove right into a fireside chat with CBC President Andrew Rein before a packed room last Tuesday at Manhattan's Club 101. Despite her short tenure, Bray still had plenty to discuss about where she fits into the Executive Chamber, calling Gov. Kathy Hochul "incredibly fiscally responsible" as she and the Legislature continued to negotiate over the state's long-overdue budget.

Bray previously was the state's Commissioner of the Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, helping oversee New York's emergency management responses to extreme weather, infectious disease outbreaks and threats to public safety. And, while serving as acting policy director, she was credited for helping design and implement financial relief to millions of New Yorkers and was involved in getting cell phones out of classrooms.

Before that, she held several roles during New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration, including Senior Advisor at the Vaccine Command Center, Deputy Executive Director of the COVID-19 Test & Trace Corps and Director of the Mayor's Office of Tenant Protection. Also, during her discussion with Rein, she playfully touted her time as Deputy Chief of Staff at the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, also known as NOAA. Bray also touched upon the governor's pied-à-terre tax proposal, Express NY and her long-term outlook for the Empire State.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What is the Director of State Operations? What do you do—or maybe easier—what don't you do?

So, I describe it as the COO of the state of New York. I oversee all of the agencies from the National Guard to the Department of Health, from the State Police to environmental conservation, and mental health and transportation. And so, I am principally responsible for the sort of day-to-day functioning of the bureaucracy. And a member of the governor's senior team, and, you know, a confidante.

I am not the lawyer. I'm very much not the lawyer. And I don't run the budget.

Which is harder in getting the budget done—policy or money?

Always policy. Always policy. When you're doing the money question, the negotiation is always about prioritization, right? And the governor's been very clear about what her priorities are, and frankly the legislature is clear about what their priorities are.

The policy questions often are what take the most time. By far.

Why bind policy decisions to the budget? Why not separate them?

Governing is often about leveraging the power that you have. And I would never, as one of her advisors, advise her to shift those conversations to a place where she has less power.

I get it as an academic exercise of, 'Wouldn't it be nice to do the budget and then do policy?' But the realpolitik is, we're going to do what we need to get done in the moment that we have the most ability to get it done.

Is the state setting itself up for a self-inflicted fiscal crisis?

No. First of all, this governor has been incredibly fiscally responsible. When she took over, we had reserves of about two billion dollars. At this point, they are fourteen billion dollars.

We have attempted many times to rein in spending where it was getting out of control, and the most high-profile place is CDPAP. That program was growing on a hockey-stick curve, completely uncontrolled, and the governor took on a huge political fight to rein it in.

Why not put more money into reserves given recession risks?

We have a responsibility to balance risks in a way that acknowledges that government is there to do good things. If we were to stop and put the revenue we've got into the piggy bank, we would immediately be impacting people's lives in a bad way.

Government's job is to deliver for people on a day-to-day basis, especially at a time when the federal government is leaving vulnerable people hanging them out to dry.

How has the administration developed the pied-à-terre tax proposal?

We didn't just pull this out of thin air. A pied-à-terre tax is something that's been talked about for at least fifteen years.

The governor was looking for a way to help the city with recurring revenue that didn't undermine competitiveness and didn't drive people out of the state. We're targeting people who don't call New York City home but benefit from it.

Are you concerned about the economic or development impact of the tax?

I'm not terribly worried about the economic effects. Someone said, 'What if fewer buildings get built?' I don't think it would be a bad thing for more three-million-dollar apartments to be built instead of three-hundred-million-dollar penthouses.

What we need is more apartments for more people.

Is SEQRA reform going to happen this year?

We are not leaving Albany with a budget this year without significant reform to our environmental review process. It has been bastardized for decades to stop development that has nothing to do with the environment.

We cannot reform SEQRA and make it harder to build. That would defeat the entire point.

Will climate goals be adjusted to protect affordability?

What the 2019 Climate Act does is give us such tight requirements that there is no wiggle room, and the costs cascade to every ratepayer.

We are going to land somewhere where the law is implementable and does not have a catastrophic impact on affordability, while still reducing fossil fuel emissions.

What is Express NY?

We launched Express NY as a portal where everyday New Yorkers could tell us what laws and regulations drive them crazy. I thought we might get a few hundred responses. We got thousands.

There are over a thousand places where we still require faxing of paperwork. This is crazy stuff.

Can you give a specific example of harmful regulation?

If you use a classroom for school, you need one number of toilets. If you use the same classroom for childcare, you need a different number.

In New York City, you can't put childcare on the second floor. That makes childcare more expensive than it needs to be.

What are you most worried about long term for New York?

I'm really worried about job growth. I see chronically underemployed people and chronically desperate employers, and those two problems should be able to get married.

Wages are too low for too many New Yorkers, and that is part of the affordability crisis.

How soon will we see activity on the Second Avenue Subway?

I think really soon. The MTA approved the next contract, and we're not going to miss a beat.

Can Hudson Valley transit help solve the housing crisis?

One of the ways we're going to solve housing prices is by unlocking the Hudson Valley.

If you've got to go in three days a week, people will take a ninety-minute train. Cities up the Hudson want to grow.

Are there areas where the state is actually cutting programs?

I'm a big believer in stopping doing things that don't work. Instead of crippling programs by cutting 10% across the board, I'd rather cut an arm off.

I have a goal this year of taking hundreds of millions out of the operating budget.