The Board of Aldermen is the legislative body of the city. It consists of seventy-three men elected from Aldermanic districts. They serve for a term of two years, and receive a salary of $2,000 each. This board makes the ordinances for the government of the city. It makes and enforces police, fire, building, health, and park regulations; it makes by-laws for the regulation of public markets, streets, public buildings, docks; for inspection of weights and measures; regulating places of amusement, height of buildings; licensing cabs, truckmen, and pawnbrokers, and regulations for the suppression of vice. A city clerk and a clerk of the board at a $7,000 salary each, are appointed by the board.
The Board of Estimate and Apportionment is the most important of the city boards. It frames the city budget, which has to be adopted by the Board of Aldermen. It also passes on bills granting franchise rights. It represents the whole city, and consists of the Mayor, Comptroller, President of the Board of Aldermen, each with three votes; Presidents of Manhattan and Brooklyn Boroughs, with two votes each; and Presidents of Bronx, Richmond, and Queens Boroughs, with one vote each.
Among the important appointive positions of the city which are in the hands of the Mayor are the following:
The Corporation Counsel, with a salary of $15,000 a year, is the head of the law department of the city, and is the city’s legal adviser. He has over fifty assistant counsels to appoint, with salaries ranging from $3,000 to $10,000 a year, and a host of deputy and junior assistants.
The City Chamberlain receives and pays out all moneys for the city—salary $12,000. He may appoint a deputy at $5,000 a year. The abolishment of the office of Chamberlain as being unnecessary was recommended by a recent incumbent; but it is too large a plum to be lightly discarded.
The President of the Department of Taxes and Assessments receives $8,000 a year. Six other tax commissioners are appointed with salaries of $7,000 each, two of whom must be of the opposing party.
The Commissioners of Accounts, of Correction, of Docks and Ferries, and of Health, the Fire Commissioner, Police Commissioner, Commissioner of Licenses, of Plants and Structures, of Public Charities, the Street-cleaning and Tenement House Commissioners, Commissioner of Water Supply, Gas and Electricity, and the chairman of the Parole Commission, all receive $7,500 a year; the Commissioner of Weights and Measures, $5,000 a year.
There is a new Commissioner of Public Markets, and a Supervisor of the City Record, a city publication which must print all ordinances which involve the spending of city money, granting a franchise, or making a specific improvement, before they are passed by the Board of Aldermen.
There are many other less important offices to be filled, and the Borough Presidents have still further appointments.
The Board of Education has been reduced from forty-six to seven members, of whom two are now women. In addition there are forty-six local school boards in the various school districts, each consisting of five members appointed by the Borough President and the District Superintendent of the local school district. These have now been divided among the seven members of the new School Board.