New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced a plan to recreate a Big Apple version of the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, called the Commission on Government Efficiency.
New York’s COGE will examine the city’s charter and figure out ways for Mamdani’s administration to cut costs, improve efficiency, and modernize the city’s government, the mayor’s office announced.
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“New Yorkers deserve a government that works as hard as they do – and a government as careful with their money as they are,” Mamdani said in a statement. “For too long, bureaucracy has stood in the way of delivering the housing, transit, child care and public services our city needs. The Commission on Government Efficiency will take a hard look at how City government functions and identify the reforms we need to deliver faster, smarter and more effectively for working people.”
After reviewing the entire 340-page charter, the commission will propose amendments to make the city run more efficiently. The COGE will then hold 10 public hearings throughout each borough of New York City to hear direct feedback from residents on its proposed amendments to the charter.
Mamdani named Patrick Gaspard, an adviser and former Obama administration official, as the commission’s chairman. There are 14 other committee members, and Mamdani proposed a 15th, Ann Cheng from Gov. Kathy Hochul’s (D-NY) office, to serve as the committee’s executive director.
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“New Yorkers deserve and need a government of the possible – one that can urgently build infrastructure, promote small business growth, and make the city more livable with accessible childcare and affordable groceries,” Gaspard said in a statement.
Mamdani’s announcement of COGE, which made no mention of Elon Musk’s DOGE, came just days after the mayor nullified former Mayor Eric Adams’s Charter Revision Commission, which Adams stacked full of his own allies just before leaving office. Hochul’s passed New York state budget gave Mamdani the authority to dismantle Adams’s commission, which aimed to create open primaries in the city and fight antisemitism.
