Among the constituencies served by IBO are the city's 59 community boards. The City Charter directs IBO to provide these neighborhood governmental bodies with information to assist them in their role in the budget process. IBO staff often make presentations at community board meetings and answer budget questions from community board members and staff. IBO also provides formal written responses to community board inquiries that require in-depth study. Two recent examples are IBO's responses to Community Board 10 in the Bronx and Community Board 6 in Brooklyn.

Bronx Board 10 requested an analysis of the adequacy of police coverage in its district, which has the same boundaries as the 45th Police Precinct. IBO found that while the number of police officers per capita and per square mile in the 45th Precinct is below the borough-wide average, so too are the area's felony and misdemeanor crime rates. In order to further address Board 10's concerns, we have requested additional information from the NYPD. We intend to review the agency's decision-making process regarding precinct-level allocations of uniformed personnel as well as the extent to which borough-wide patrol and detective commands supplement precinct-level operations.

Brooklyn Board 6 requested an analysis of the budgetary implications of providing residential garbage collection on the eleven annual holidays such service is now suspended. We found that New York City's current practice of suspending collection on holidays is also the policy in other very large cities across the country (although the number of such holidays observed here is somewhat above average). We also determined that under the terms of the city's current contractual agreements with its sanitation workers, adopting a policy of providing regular collection services on holidays would carry with it an additional annual cost of about $9.7 million.

Copies of our responses to these two community boards can be obtained by calling IBO at (212) 442-0632.