Many of the reporting requirements are well-intentioned, but create unnecessary burdens on agency staff, bog down city operations and duplicate disclosures, the commission\u2019s final report<\/a> from late July found. It said an average of more than 80 reporting laws were passed or updated each year from 2020 through 2025, while a\u00a0city Department of Records and Information Services portal showed more than 2,000 separate, mostly recurring reporting requirements. And a survey COGE conducted among all city agencies found more than 125,000 staff hours are spent annually on reports, generating significant costs.<\/p>\n \u201cThese reporting requirements continuously grow, imposing an ever-increasing strain on agency resources, as agencies struggle to keep up with writing, coordinating and timely submitting all mandatory reports,\u201d the commission wrote. \u201cEach of these reports necessitates staff time and energy that may be better spent on implementing policies, rather than writing about them.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018There\u2019s a Disconnect\u2019<\/p>\n COGE isn\u2019t alone in raising the issue, long a source of complaints from some good-government groups, agency staff and civic watchdogs.<\/p>\n Tal Roded, a data scientist for LinkedIn who runs a data-focused Substack called NYCuriosity, this month released a Council \u201cobligations tracker\u201d<\/a> that culled through every local law enacted since 2014 and identified the various tasks they assign to each agency. His research found<\/a> laws passed over the last 12 years created roughly 8,300 obligations from 2,100 laws, including about 1,550 required reports, or about a fifth of all the tasks.<\/p>\n Nearly 850 of the reports recur at least once per year, according to Roded\u2019s analysis<\/a> \u2014 meaning the Council established about 70 such requirements each year on average. The Department of Education had the most reporting obligations, at 136, followed by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, at 89, and the NYPD, at 79, his tracker shows<\/a>.<\/p>\n As a member of Manhattan Community Board 3, which covers the East Village, the Lower East Side and Chinatown, Roded said he routinely heard from elected officials who \u201clove to brag about all the legislation they passed,\u201d even as government operations often seemed sluggish.<\/p>\n He said he started to think: \u201cHow is everything not fixed if there\u2019s all these great bills being passed all the time on the city and state level?\u201d So he created and released a fiscal impact tracker on bills<\/a> before widening his reach to include agency duties that don\u2019t necessarily have an upfront cost.<\/p>\n \u201cWith a lot of this legislation, there\u2019s a disconnect between the legislator talking about what they passed and the agency or the body being tasked with carrying out this legislation,\u201d Roded told The City Reporter in an interview.<\/p>\n A Potential Solution \u2014 For Now Unused<\/p>\n Mamdani\u2019s COGE approved five ballot proposals for the November election that seek to improve different parts of city government<\/a>, but none of the measures target the reams of agency reporting requirements. The commission, however, did recommend a path for alleviating these administrative burdens: strengthening an obscure city entity called the Report and Advisory Board Review Commission<\/a>, which goes over required reports to determine which can be waived or removed.<\/p>\n This panel, housed in the Mayor\u2019s Office of Operations, was formed through a ballot measure through a 2010 charter revision commission. But RABRC has eliminated only 28 reports since 2012, according to COGE, and its last public meeting was in December 2024<\/a>. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe mechanism is there, but it\u2019s not being used,\u201d Roded said.<\/p>\n![\"Tal](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/roded-reporting-reqs-1-e1786980358168-1024x745.png\")
Tal Roded\u2019s analysis shows how many reports city agencies are legally required to produce. Credit: Courtesy of Tal Roded\/NYCuriosity<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/roded-reporting-reqs-2.png\")
The number of agency reports required at least once annually keeps climbing. Credit: Courtesy of Tal Roded\/NYCuriosity<\/p>\n
![\"Citizens](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/090925_boe_meeting-7.jpg\")
Citizens Union Executive Director Grace Rauh speaks at a Board of Elections meeting in Lower Manhattan. Credit: Alex Krales\/THE CITY<\/p>\n