NYCEDC Wants a Consultant to Sell New Yorkers on Five Charter Changes. Here's the RFP, and What the Changes Would Actually Do.

The New York City Economic Development Corporation issued a Request for Proposals on August 5, 2026, seeking a consultant to run a public education campaign explaining five proposed charter amendments to voters ahead of the November 3, 2026 election. The RFP itself is straightforward: NYCEDC wants strategy, design, and media-buying services, capped at $1.6 million, with proposals due August 19, 2026. What's less straightforward is what the five amendments themselves would do — they touch revocable consents and sidewalk cafés, procurement, street safety and city property disposition, office leasing, building permitting, and the city's reserve funds, all of which reach into how businesses, including financial services firms, deal with the city.

Where the RFP Comes From

The Commission on Government Efficiency (COGE), a 15-member Charter Revision Commission, was appointed by Mayor Mamdani in May 2026 to review the City Charter for potential revisions. COGE held ten public hearings across the five boroughs, released an interim report on July 3, 2026, and released its final report on July 23, 2026. According to a transcript of that final public meeting, the commission voted 15-0 to adopt the final report, then voted 15-0 again on a separate resolution directing commission staff to deliver the ballot questions to the City Clerk and to take the actions necessary to educate the public about them. That second resolution is the origin of the education campaign NYCEDC is now soliciting a consultant to run.

The RFP requires that "all public education campaign deliverables for the Commission must be neutral to the Proposals and solely informational on the content of the proposed ballot items." NYCEDC, not COGE, is the contracting party and the entity issuing and administering this RFP.

How the Campaign Is Paid

NYCEDC will pay the winning consultant up to a Maximum Contract Price of $1,600,000, covering both "Placements" (media buys) and "Consultant Fees." The fee structure is a percentage commission: the RFP states the Consultant Fee is "net plus a percentage commission set by mutual agreement between NYCEDC and the Consultant," applied to placement costs. Strategy work (Task 1) and account management (Task 4) aren't billed separately — the RFP folds both into that same Consultant Fee. Production costs (Task 2, for design and creative assets) are reimbursed separately at cost, subject to pre-approval by COGE staff for the asset type; premium stock, voiceover, or animation can add cost and needs additional pre-approval from both COGE staff and NYCEDC.

One clause is worth flagging for bidders: the same section of the RFP that says "NYCEDC will not reimburse the Consultant for out-of-pocket expenses" also reimburses production costs and placement costs a few lines later. The RFP doesn't define what "out-of-pocket expenses" means if not those two categories. Note, though, that the RFP's only stated channel for technical questions (see Key Dates, below) is limited to "downloading and submitting Proposals" — the RFP doesn't establish a process for substantive questions about scope or payment terms like this one.

Scope of Work

The RFP lays out four tasks:

Who Can Bid and What Experience Counts

The RFP doesn't set a minimum years-in-business or dollar-volume threshold. Instead, it asks Respondents to demonstrate relevant experience through their proposal: bios of team members who would work on the account, an outline of the team's organizational structure (including how a consortium or subcontractor arrangement would be structured, if applicable), and examples of comparable projects the team has managed, each with a project description, start and completion dates, and visual examples of the finished work.

What You Must Submit

Proposals are capped at ten pages, excluding required forms, and submitted through NYCEDC's project page at edc.nyc/rfps as either a single zip file or as multiple individually labeled PDFs, each carrying the same submission title plus a description of that specific file. The RFP specifies Chrome as the preferred upload browser and requires searchable PDF format. Required contents:

The RFP also specifies letter-size (8.5 x 11 inch) pages, and separately notes that Respondents are "strongly encouraged" — though not required — to have an active PASSPort account (the City's contractor-vetting portal) in place before award.

Note that these RFP-internal appendices (A: the Equal Employment Opportunity rider; B: the Doing Business Data Form; C: the Payment Schedule) are separate from, and not to be confused with, COGE's own Appendix A, B, and C (the ballot questions, abstracts, and full charter amendment text, respectively) — both documents happen to use the same lettering for their own attachments.

The Doing Business Data Form matters beyond paperwork: under Administrative Code § 3-702, being listed in the City's Doing Business Database triggers lower municipal campaign contribution limits for the firm's principal officers, owners, and senior managers. Any financial services or communications firm bidding should know that winning — or even being listed for having "done business" with the city — constrains what its own leadership can personally contribute to city campaigns going forward.

Selection Criteria

NYCEDC will score proposals on four equally weighted factors, each worth 25%:

Selection Process and NYCEDC's Reserved Rights

NYCEDC reserves broad discretion throughout: it can amend, modify, or withdraw the RFP; waive any of its own requirements; request supplemental information from any Respondent; select a Respondent or no Respondent at all; select a consultant that never submitted a proposal at all; negotiate with anyone, including non-Respondents; and cancel the RFP in whole or in part, all without notice or liability for a Respondent's proposal costs. Submitting a Proposal creates no obligation on NYCEDC's part, and the RFP states plainly that it "does not commit NYCEDC to procure the Services described herein." The City itself is not a party to the RFP and bears no liability under it.

Respondents should also know that submitted proposals are subject to New York's Freedom of Information Law. A Respondent can flag specific trade-secret material in writing at submission; the RFP states that a bidder's own trade-secret characterization "shall not be determinative, but will be considered by NYCEDC" when NYCEDC evaluates whether a FOIL exemption applies.

Key Dates

That overlapping deadline is worth calling out directly: the RFP sets the same August 19, 4:00 p.m. deadline for both technical questions and proposal submission. As written, there's no window in which NYCEDC's answers to a bidder's technical question could inform that same bidder's proposal, since both are due at the identical moment. The RFP also limits that question channel to questions "pertaining to downloading and submitting Proposals" — it doesn't describe any process for substantive questions about scope, payment terms, or anything else in the RFP.

The Five Charter Amendments on the Ballot

COGE's final report proposes five charter amendments. Each requires voter approval in a citywide referendum on November 3, 2026 to take effect, and each has its own effective date if approved.

Question 1: Revocable Consents and Sidewalk Cafes

This amendment would let the Department of Transportation (or, for telecom infrastructure, the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications) decide at its own discretion whether to hold a public hearing before granting a "revocable consent" — the permission the city grants to place a bench, ramp, planter, or sidewalk café on public property. Currently a hearing is mandatory. The amendment also shortens the City Record notice period from 15 days to 6, drops the requirement to publish hearing notices in newspapers, and removes the City Council's power to disapprove a sidewalk café specifically — cafés would move to the same review track as every other revocable consent. Notice to the Community Board, Council member, and Borough President stays in place, and the amendment adds a new 15-day window for them to submit comments on a petition, plus a requirement that the agency make best efforts to solicit broader public input online. If approved, this amendment takes effect March 1, 2027, and won't apply to any petition already filed by that date.

Question 2: Procurement and Contractor Paperwork

This amendment authorizes the Procurement Policy Board (PPB) to vary the pre-contract questionnaire that businesses must complete to bid on city contracts — including creating a shorter version for small businesses or contracts under a certain dollar threshold. COGE's final report frames the current one-size-fits-all form bluntly:

"A hot dog vendor and a large commercial bank must answer the same questions."

The amendment also requires the PPB to meet at least quarterly (it currently has no set meeting schedule), and simplifies the client-services contracting plan agencies produce each year: today, agencies issue a draft plan, hold a public hearing on it, then issue a final plan; the amendment drops both the draft-plan step and the hearing, replacing them with a single plan due each year by September 30. It also lets the Mayor delegate approval of non-competitively-awarded contracts over $5 million to individual agency contracting officers, with that agency's Commissioner signing off. It also makes permanent the City's ability to use a public notice-and-comment period instead of a hearing for contracts above a dollar threshold the PPB sets, and lets the PPB raise that threshold over time.

COGE's report cites Fiscal Year 2025 procurement of $42.3 billion, describing it as nearly 40% of the city's budget, and projects the amendment package would cut the city's procurement timeline by 12%. The report also states that some contractors, while awaiting delayed City payment, take out loans to cover the gap. Effective dates are staggered: the delegation authority, the questionnaire-simplification rules, and the client-services plan/hearing change all take effect immediately upon certification of the vote; the quarterly PPB meeting requirement takes effect January 1, 2027; and the PPB's authority to raise the public-comment dollar threshold doesn't take effect until October 1, 2030.

Question 3: Street Safety Projects, City Property, and Office Leases

Three separate changes are bundled into this question. First, on street safety projects: agencies consulted on a "major transportation project" — defined as a roadway realignment (including removing a traffic or parking lane) spanning more than four consecutive blocks or 1,000 feet, or any project that adds or removes a bike lane of any length — would only need to confer with the head of their own agency, not sub-units — for example, the Fire Department would no longer have to confer with individual affected firehouses. A failure to consult wouldn't invalidate a project once built, and the Department of Transportation could begin work before notifying local elected officials if it determines the project addresses an immediate public-safety risk based on crash data.

Second, on city property: lots no larger than 10,000 square feet that aren't individual landmarks (and development rights on landmark sites) could use the faster Expedited Land Use Review Procedure instead of the roughly seven-month Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, provided the project doesn't trigger environmental-impact-statement requirements. The amendment also permanently authorizes a program — currently set to expire in 2030 — that lets the city sell undevelopable lots to adjacent owners without public auction, and it removes an extra public hearing previously required when more than two years pass between a disposition's approval and the signed agreement to execute it.

Third, on office space: the amendment removes the City Planning Commission's hearing and approval role and the City Council's two-thirds-vote power to disapprove a lease when the city acquires office space for its own workforce. In place of that review, the DCAS Commissioner would need to find the acquisition is in the city's best interest, notify the local Community Board, Council member, and Borough President beforehand, and notify the Council and Comptroller after the deal closes. Most of this question's provisions take effect immediately upon certification; the permanent no-auction authorization for undevelopable-lot sales takes effect December 31, 2030.

Question 4: Building Permitting

This amendment lets the Department of Buildings (DOB) Commissioner appoint more than the current two Deputy Commissioners, and swaps the single "Borough Superintendent" per borough for one or more "Borough Commissioners" who can approve construction documents citywide. It directs DOB to build a centralized system, in cooperation with the Department of Environmental Protection, the Fire Department, and the Department of Transportation, for submitting and approving construction permit applications — the amendment's text requires this system to be established by December 1, 2029, "or within such further period of time as the commissioner determines may be feasible" (COGE's own report and abstract round this date to "2030"). The amendment also transfers waterfront construction permitting from the Department of Small Business Services to DOB, effective December 31, 2030, or whenever a new code governing waterfront construction takes effect, whichever comes first; permits already issued by Small Business Services stay valid.

Question 5: Rainy Day Fund Reserve Target

This amendment sets a target for the city's combined reserve funds — including the Rainy Day Fund — of at least 12% of the prior fiscal year's tax revenue. If reserves fall below that target, the city is required to deposit money according to a methodology the Mayor's Office of Management and Budget, in consultation with the Comptroller, must publish by May 1, 2027 (and update by May 1, 2030 and at least every four years after that) — unless the methodology itself specifies that no deposit is required that year. Before publishing a final version, OMB must publish the proposed methodology in the City Record and hold a public hearing at least 30 days later, with a stated deadline for written comments, and must share the proposed methodology with the Council Speaker, the director of the Independent Budget Office, the State Comptroller, and the State Financial Control Board at least 30 days before it's published. Any deposit is also subject to annual appropriation approval from the Mayor and City Council, so the amendment creates a conditional deposit obligation — one that can be reduced to zero either by the methodology's own hardship carve-out or by the appropriations process — rather than a fixed, guaranteed contribution. The amendment also caps withdrawals from the fund at 50% of its balance in any fiscal year unless the Mayor certifies a "compelling fiscal need," which largely mirrors an existing state-law cap. This amendment would take effect immediately upon certification of the vote.

Why It Matters for Financial Services and Other Businesses

Several of these amendments reach directly into how businesses transact with the city, finance projects in it, and assess its credit.

Contracting and procurement. Any financial services firm, consultancy, or vendor that bids on city work is a "contractor" subject to Question 2's questionnaire rules. The Procurement Policy Board would gain authority to vary that questionnaire by contract size, industry, or small-business status, with the stated goal of reducing the paperwork burden for small businesses and nonprofits specifically — the amendment authorizes that simplification but leaves the actual rules to a board that hasn't written them yet, so which categories of contractor end up with a shorter form is not yet determined. Separately, this RFP is itself an example of that mechanism in effect: any firm that wins the contract, or is listed in the Doing Business Database for having pursued it, has its principal officers' personal campaign-contribution limits reduced under Administrative Code § 3-702 — a narrow constraint on individual bidders' political activity.

Commercial real estate and permitting. Question 3's faster disposition process for small city lots, and Question 4's centralized permitting hub, both target delay in processes that developers and property owners currently have to go through across multiple agencies. COGE's report describes the current permitting system as spanning more than a dozen agencies, and separately cites written testimony from the Real Estate Board of New York describing that fragmentation as a source of delay and administrative burden. Whether the centralized hub actually changes financing or construction timelines depends on DOB meeting its December 2029 target, which the amendment itself allows DOB to push back "as the commissioner determines may be feasible." The office-leasing change in Question 3 also matters specifically to commercial landlords: removing the City Council's two-thirds-vote power to disapprove a lease where the city is the tenant takes a late-stage disapproval risk out of any deal where the city is the prospective office tenant.

Municipal credit and public finance. Question 5 is the most directly relevant to financial services, though the sources reviewed for this article don't include commentary from bond investors, underwriters, or rating agencies specifically on this amendment — reserve policy is, as a general matter, one factor those parties look at when assessing municipal credit. What the amendment itself does is create a conditional deposit obligation, subject to a hardship carve-out in the methodology and to annual appropriation, in place of the current arrangement, where COGE's report states deposits are "entirely discretionary" and negotiated each year through the budget process. Anyone evaluating city debt should treat the amendment as a target and a mandated, transparent process, not a guaranteed funding stream.

Waterfront and maritime-adjacent business. Question 4 moves permitting authority for wharves, piers, docks, and other waterfront structures from the Department of Small Business Services to DOB. Businesses operating maritime infrastructure, or financing construction on the waterfront, would eventually deal with a different regulator and a different set of procedures, though existing permits remain valid and the transfer takes effect no later than December 31, 2030 — sooner, if a new code governing waterfront construction takes effect first.

The Risks and Obstacles

The amendments themselves carry built-in qualifiers that limit how much any of this is guaranteed. The Question 4 permitting hub is "subject to appropriations" and its December 1, 2029 deadline can slip "as the commissioner determines may be feasible" — the amendment's text doesn't specify any penalty or enforcement step if DOB misses that date. The Question 5 reserve target works the same way: it's a required deposit obligation in form, but the methodology can waive a deposit in a bad year, and any deposit still needs separate annual appropriation. Question 2's procurement-timeline savings (COGE's cited 12% figure) is the Commission's own projection, not an audited outcome, and several of the procurement provisions don't take effect until 2027 or 2030.

On the RFP side, the overlapping technical-questions-and-proposal deadline (both August 19, 4:00 p.m. EST) and the unexplained "out-of-pocket expenses" reimbursement exclusion sitting alongside two categories of costs the RFP says it will reimburse are both worth a bidder's attention — even though the RFP doesn't provide an obvious channel to get either one clarified before the deadline.

What to Watch

The Procurement Policy Board's rulemaking under Question 2 will determine how much paperwork actually gets cut, and for whom — the amendment authorizes simplification but leaves the specifics to a board rule that hasn't been written yet. DOB's progress toward the December 2029 centralized permitting system, and its plan for taking over waterfront permitting from the Department of Small Business Services, are both multi-year efforts, and the amendment's own text lets DOB's December 2029 deadline slip if the commissioner deems it infeasible. And OMB's rainy-day-fund methodology, due by May 1, 2027, will show whether the 12% target leads to actual deposits or stays a target the city cites without funding it.

This article is factual background and is not legal, financial, or investment advice.