One of the core claims of Zohran Mamdani’s campaign for New York City mayor last year was that government can and should work effectively and efficiently for the people it serves, with “public excellence” as one of the thirty-four-year-old democratic socialist’s guiding principles. Mamdani has repeatedly stressed the need to boost efficiency, enhance public services, and reduce waste within city government. The surest way to rebuild trust in government and push back on the Right’s assault on the public sector, he has argued, is to strive for a clean and efficient government “where excellence is no longer the exception.”
As Corey Robin has pointed out, this focus on “democratic excellence” marks a significant innovation for the Left, which has long “ceded this rhetorical ground to the Right.” In the same way, Mamdani’s commitment to public efficiency reclaims territory that was long treated as the province of conservative or neoliberal governance.
This emphasis on efficiency has been front and center in Mamdani’s first fifty days in office, particularly in his handling of the city’s fiscal crisis. During his recent budget presentation, the mayor detailed his administration’s ongoing efforts to identify savings by “reducing bureaucratic waste and rendering agencies more efficient and cost-effective.”
At the center of this effort is an initiative launched by Mamdani late last month when he signed an executive order calling on each city agency to appoint a “Chief Savings Officer” (CSO) to “review performance, eliminate waste and streamline service delivery.” Issued one day after the mayor claimed a projected $12 billion budget gap left by the prior administration, the order instructed all agencies to equip their CSOs with sufficient staff and access to data to conduct detailed operational and spending reviews within forty-five days, with the aim of enhancing “long-term quality and efficiency of City…
Auteur: Conor Lynch
