As New Yorkers know better than anyone, everything costs more here. But seven times more? Alas, yes — at least if you’re talking about public-construction projects. The latest example: PS 33 in The Bronx, vs. a similar-sized school just across the Hudson in Jersey City, NJ.
It’s outrageous. And it goes a long way toward explaining why New York hits residents and businesses here with the highest taxes in America.
As The Post’s Conor Skelding and Ben Blanchet report, the two new facilities are similar in almost every aspect — except price. In Jersey City, a new 53,000-square-foot charter school will offer 480 seats at a cost of $12.5 million. In The Bronx, an expansion of PS 33 will add 46,000 square feet and just 388 seats but cost a whopping $70 million. That’s $180,000 per seat in New York, compared with just $26,000 across the river, or 6.9 times more.
Part of the problem, usually, is that New York pols bow to union leaders on generous terms and work rules. Thanks to the pro-union “prevailing wage” law, public projects in the city can cost up to 25 percent more. Yet the Jersey City school also paid “prevailing wages” and used union labor, officials said.
A 2019 report by the Citizens Budget Commission called school projects overseen by the city’s School Construction Authority “slow” and “expensive.” Others point to onerous government regulations. Some cite corruption.
But the bottom line is obvious: New York pols simply don’t consider costs a high priority. When they impose green regs or pricey work-rule requirements (like paid leave), or pay vendors slowly, or require endless paperwork, they rarely think about costs. A mile of subway track here similarly costs as much as seven times the price in other big cities.
Mayor-elect Eric Adams has called for a CompStat-like system (the data system the NYPD uses to target resources) for city agencies, to control costs and get more services for the buck. That kind of cost-conscious thinking clearly needs to apply to public projects.
New York is set to reap billions in COVID “relief” and infrastructure funds. It sure would be nice if that kind of cash isn’t wasted.