Good morning. It’s Thursday. Today we’ll look at Gov. Kathy Hochul’s push to end the state’s archaic use of outdated technology, like the fax machine, and examine whether certain councils or task forces may have outlived their purpose.
State bureaucracies are often known for being inefficient, and New York is no exception. The state has a long-term love affair with task forces and councils, and the reporting requirements are stubbornly analog. Instead of using email, which can be sent and received in seconds, state law mandates that agencies use some of the most antiquated technologies still in existence. There are hundreds of instances, for example, where documents are required to be transmitted via either fax or the United States Postal Service. The telegram is considered an acceptable way to communicate. In fact, if a serious boiler accident were to occur on one of New York’s last steam trains, state law requires operators to notify the Department of Transportation — by either phone or telegram. But as my colleague Grace Ashford reported this week, Gov. Kathy Hochul is looking to put an end to these burdensome requirements, with a little help from artificial intelligence. On Wednesday, she signed an executive order calling for state agencies to modernize or eliminate obsolete regulations. The effort is called Regulatory Reset, and it will deploy A.I. to comb though roughly 18 million words of codified statute to find references to fees; signature or notary requirements; fax, mail, telegraph and other outdated technologies; as well as task forces, councils and mandatory reports. Then human experts will decide what ought to change. As part of the effort, the state solicited suggestions from agencies and the public and collected more than 4,000 submissions — many of which mention the absurdity of maintaining a fax machine in 2026. “We have laws on the books that require a special permit for a woman to work later hours,” Hochul said in an interview. “No wonder people get so frustrated. So I’m getting rid of that.” The A.I. tools used for the effort were created in collaboration with the civic tech organization Recoding America and Stanford University. Prof. Daniel Ho, who directs the Regulation, Evaluation and Governance Lab at Stanford that helped create the A.I. tools, noted that some of the state’s inefficiency stems from required annual reports that are relics of another era. For example, a McCarthy-era annual report on what measures are being taken to enforce laws against subversive teachers in public schools remains on the books despite being declared unconstitutional in 1967. “If we take up all of the time in the civil service to write a bunch of reports that very few people read, that may not be the highest value use, and may actually also be demoralizing for folks who have to work on those reports,” he said. State agencies will examine the results of the A.I. reviews and then decide on changes. Those that need legislative approval will be included in Gov. Hochul’s legislative agenda for the coming year. The announcement comes amid other attempts to improve government efficiency. In New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced a commission to review the city charter to make city government more efficient. The goal, Ms. Hochul said, was to “remove that narrative that New York is hostile to business or an unfriendly place to operate.” She added, “I want that people have a very different viewpoint of their government that is there for them.” WEATHER Expect a mostly sunny day with scattered thunderstorms and temperatures around 85. There’s a chance of showers and thunderstorms tonight, with a low near 73. ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING In effect until July 23 (Tisha B’Av). QUOTE OF THE DAY “They just want a chance, and they have grit.” — Jeffrey Aronson, co-founder of Centerbridge Partners, on tapping CUNY students, as graduates navigate the gloomiest job market since the height of the coronavirus pandemic. The latest New York news
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Dear Diary: Most weekday mornings, I take my 6-year-old son to school on the subway from Brooklyn into Manhattan. As anyone who rides the F in the morning knows, it can be about as pleasant as trying to walk through Times Square, only with people’s armpits shoved in your face. Add to that trying to make sure a 6-year-old doesn’t step on someone’s foot or have a meltdown because you forgot string cheese, and you have a sense of how fraught this trip can be. So the video ads that now fill the cars are very important. I have conned my son into thinking he’s getting to watch TV, which isn’t allowed at home, on the train. One morning while we rode a crowded F, my son noticed that none of the video screens in the car were working. “Why are the screens not working?” he asked. “Well, they might be broken,” I said. My son looked up and down the car. “All of them?” he asked. Then he shook his head, sighed, pulled his hand out of his pocket and held it to his face. He started pressing imaginary buttons on his hand, and I realized he was pretending it was a cellphone. He put his hand up to his ear and spoke into it loudly. “Mamdani, Mamdani,” he said. “The videos on the F train are not working.” He waited for a response and then spoke again. “What do you mean he’s not there?” he said. “Where is he? Well, go get him.” Even in my son’s fantasy, the bureaucracy was giving him the runaround. A moment later, our stop arrived, and my son wrapped up his call: “My dad says we have to get off the train now, so please give him the message.” — Aasif Mandvi Mr. Mandvi is an actor. He recently completed a run in “Fallen Angels” on Broadway. Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. C.C. Davaughnia Wilson, Andy Chen and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. |
