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DCP and OMB changes aim to streamline community board budget requests; boards report missing spreadsheets
Summary
A Department of City Planning (DCP) presentation described refinements to the community district needs/vision cycle and a new online request form; community board members said the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) did not provide past Excel breakdowns and asked DCP to push OMB for better access and earlier openings.
Community board members heard an update on the city’s community district needs and the online budget-request process during the Queens Borough Cabinet meeting.
DCP staff explained that the city has revised its request portal to include implemented and planned improvements and that the new system will not force an applicant to stop mid-submission. DCP also said staff removed confusing OMB response language that previously instructed applicants to "remove this, resubmit this," and added a print function for submissions to make offline proofreading easier.
"Print function, we added a print button to each of the budget request pages to the preview your submission page. So it's now just a click the print button, click okay, and it'll print for you," a DCP presenter said.
Community board members raised two recurring problems: (1) OMB has not been sending the historical Excel spreadsheet of responses that boards usually receive, leaving boards with only PDFs; and (2) boards want earlier access to the form so members can work on requests during summer months. DCP staff acknowledged both concerns, said they will remind OMB to restore the spreadsheet distribution when available, and noted the form opening timeline has improved in successive years; the office aims to open earlier as the new website continues to stabilize.
Boards also asked for clearer guidance and for agencies to avoid suggesting request language that applicants later have to remove. DCP staff said OMB has already removed the language and that the portal opened in June for the last two years; they hope to open earlier in future cycles as fewer fixes are required.
On outreach, community board members requested an easy way for applicants to see the community board’s rules and contact information before applying; DCP staff said board contact info appears in the application instructions and resource library and offered to help upload board-specific materials on request. Boards requested that the portal include a petition upload area for constituent signatures; DCP staff said applicants can upload documents to the application and SAPO later agreed in the meeting to add a petition category on the reviewer side.
DCP staff also apologized for past problems and encouraged boards to reach out if they do not receive the usual spreadsheet or need the data extracted from the city’s master register. The office said it will follow up with OMB and can cut and provide board-specific extracts when OMB has already sent the master spreadsheet to the city.
