Mamdani forms Public Interest Technology crews to improve government efficiency and affordability
NEW YORK (WABC) -- New York City is launching Public Interest Technology crews to improve government efficiency and affordability.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani says the PIT crews will develop rapid solutions to digital issues with city-run websites that offer services to the public.
He says this work will help employees work faster and provide better service.
"Every confusing step and every dead-end portal makes it more difficult for government to deliver for New Yorkers and for New Yorkers to trust the government is working to deliver for them," Mamdani said. "Every straight-forward experience New Yorkers have on city platforms rebuilds that trust and our PIT crews will help us do exactly that."
Mamdani said the city will hire teams of technologists who will work through city departments to streamline their online portals to make them easier to navigate and to get New Yorkers the answers they need.
"They will work closely with city agencies to launch digital solutions to government processes that have long been defined by piles of paperwork, and they will do so with a speed rarely seen in government," Mamdani said.
The city will hire 30 specialists at an initial cost of $5 million. They will start, first, with the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection to build an online portal that New Yorkers can use to file complaints against companies that trap customers in subscriptions that are nearly impossible to cancel and will move onto other agencies in the coming months.
Click-to-Cancel is a new citywide rule announced by the mayor on Friday that bars businesses from making it difficult for people to cancel subscriptions.
The mayor made his announcement after circling a Coney Island racetrack in a go-kart.
"Instead of waiting years for new government technology, only for it to work slowly if it is not already frankly, outdated by the time that it's released, our pit crews will move ideas to implementation in a matter of months," Mamdani said.
Part of the funding for the PIT crews was included in the mayor's new fiscal budget.
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