Taskforce will tackle Brooklyn’s soaring auto insurance rates, and examine how Brooklyn’s schools and hospitals are shortchanged
Borough President Marty Markowitz announced today the formation of the Borough President’s Taskforce on Equity in State and Local Policy. Assemblymember Jim Brennan will lead a team of public policy experts as they investigate issues of pressing concern to Brooklynites, with particular emphasis on statewide and citywide issues that unfairly impact Brooklyn. Borough President Markowitz has asked them to begin by focusing on three issues: skyrocketing auto insurance rates for Brooklyn drivers, severe school overcrowding in Brooklyn, and chronic under-funding of Brooklyn’s hospitals and other health care providers.
“Under Assemblymember Brennan’s leadership, this taskforce will shine a light on systematic inequalities affecting Brooklyn. Put simply, we are getting an unfair share,” Borough President Markowitz said. “We have to take action when we hear that good Brooklyn drivers often pay more than four times the rates paid upstate to insure the same car. We cannot sit silently when promises to relieve dangerous overcrowding at Brooklyn schools, such as Midwood High School, go unfulfilled, and we must not stand by when the health care institutions serving our most vulnerable populations are going under-funded.”
“Auto insurance rates in Brooklyn are the highest in the nation despite declining incidents of auto theft,” said Assemblymember Brennan. “Residents in many neighborhoods are being subjected to auto insurance redlining and are effectively being priced out of the market. I am unconvinced that there is any good reason for this unfair situation.”
Over the next six months, the Borough President’s Taskforce will develop policy solutions to address out of control auto insurance rates and dramatic inequalities in funding for both school construction and health care, through research, investigation, and advocacy. In May 2003, Borough President Markowitz released a detailed analysis highlighting how New York City is shortchanging Brooklyn students, for example, by funding school construction in Brooklyn at less than 16% of what it allocates for Queens ($108 million vs. $704 million). The Taskforce will publish additional research on this topic, as well as releasing similar reports on these and other issues.
Taskforce Chairman, Assemblymember Jim Brennan, represents the 44th Assembly District in Brooklyn. In the State Assembly he serves on the Education, Corporations, Authorities and Commissions, Codes, and Real Property Taxation Committees. Joining Assemblymember Brennan on the Borough President’s Taskforce will be five eminent citizens known for their expertise in the public sector:
* Frederick Arriaga, Senior Staff Attorney at South Brooklyn Legal Services where he heads the Low-Income Taxpayer Clinic
* Dr. Ruth Brown, the Executive Director of the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health
* William Casey, Vice President for Education at the After-School Corporation and formerly Chief Executive for Education with the NYC Board of Education
* Dr. Rosa Gil, President of Health Industry Resources Enterprises, Inc. and formerly Special Health Policy Advisor to Mayor Giuliani and Chairperson of the Board of Directors, NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation
* Dr. Jerome Krase, Professor of Sociology (Emeritus), Brooklyn College.
On Wednesday, November 12th, the Taskforce will hold its first hearing at Borough Hall. This initial hearing will be held in jointly with the State Assembly’s Insurance Committee, chaired by Assemblymember Pete Grannis.
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