Seven staffers apparently aren’t enough to support First Lady Chirlane McCray — so the mayor’s office has hired 12 more since March for her mental health initiative.
The wife of Mayor Bill de Blasio already has a chief of staff, two deputy chiefs of staff, two schedulers and two communications staffers that cost taxpayers about $900,000.
The extra aides add $1.3 million to the city payroll.
And some have duties that fit in neatly with McCray’s plan to run for office in 2021, once the de Blasio administration comes to a close.
An $80,000 “advocacy manager” for the ThriveNYC mental health program works with McCray’s office to “coordinate her travel around the country” and “advance her agenda,” according to online job descriptions.
That’s on top of the two aides McCray already has handling her scheduling.
Another posting shows an $80,000 “communications manager” is supposed to support the “communications adviser to the first lady of New York City and [the Health Department] communications team with development and execution of communications strategies to advance ThriveNYC.”
McCray has two aides already dedicated to communications, and the Health Department has four press staffers dealing with mental health issues.
Then there’s a new $130,000 “senior adviser for partnerships and advocacy” at ThriveNYC. That position’s responsibilities include fundraising for the initiative — a task already handled out of the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City that McCray chairs.
The senior adviser is also responsible for organizing a national coalition of cities on mental health, whose meetings McCray has used to justify her trips across the country.
The first lady has traveled out of state at least 30 times since May 2015, often to discuss mental health and many times at taxpayers’ expense.
Those trips give her an opportunity not only to meet with mental health advocates and elected officials but also raise her own profile ahead of her possible candidacy.
City Hall officials said the ThriveNYC team reports to Deputy Mayor Phil Thompson, not McCray, although the directors regularly update the first lady and de Blasio on the program.
They said the team is needed to coordinate mental health initiatives across 20 agencies and is charged with overseeing the management and evaluation of the $850 million program, along with fostering engagement with the community.
City Hall officials said some of the staffers were already working on ThriveNYC — including the initiative’s executive director, Alexis Confer — in other offices before the team was assembled in the mayor’s office starting in March.
“Supporting the mental health of New Yorkers is one of the top priorities of this administration. Thrive’s growing team is working day and night to implement dozens of initiatives creating the city’s approach to mental health care from scratch,” said City Hall spokeswoman Marcy Miranda.
“It’s absurd to suggest our investment in mental-health-care workers has anything to do with the first lady’s political future.”
