The preliminary report of the Charter Commission staff set to be officially released at a public hearing on Monday evening tackles several of the big issues that were brought before the body, but punts on a number of the most controversial.

Its first section, on term limits, presents two options: either rolling back the current three-term limit to two, or giving citywide officials and borough presidents two terms while leaving the City Council at three. This section also recommends that the commission propose an amendment that would restrict the Council from amending term limits changes in the future in a way that would benefit the incumbents voting on the proposed changes.

The report devotes its entire second section to a discussion of so-called instant run-off voting. For citywide elections, the commission report recommends that voters rank up to three candidates in order of preference, with the votes moving over if no candidate received 40 percent of the vote. For borough president and Council elections, the report simply recommends more discussion of possible integration of instant run-off voting. Halving the number of petition signatures necessary to get on the ballot is also recommended.

Preliminary Charter Commission Report.pdf

In the third section, dealing with public integrity, the commission staff recommends giving the Campaign Finance Board more authority to regulate independent expenditures.

Going forward, expenditures over $1,000 would need to be reported, and entities spending more than $5,000 would need to disclose the sources of their funding.

A fourth section on streamlining government includes recommendations to consolidate administrative tribunals and change reporting requirements for city agencies and advisory bodies.

The final section includes the punts: the commission staff says further discussion is needed to assess non-partisan elections, the power of borough presidents and the public advocate, as well as divvying up authority over land use issues. There is also no final recommendation on independent budgets for the public advocate, comptroller, Conflict of Interest Board, Civilian Complaint Review Board, among others.

As the report concludes, “staff recommends that, like other proposals that significantly implicate important structural issues, these and other such land use suggestions put forth at the hearings and in written submissions to the Commission should be reserved for future consideration, while the Commission focuses on obtaining further public input on the issues described in Parts I-IV of the Report.”

This is the staff report. The commissioners will now have the opportunity to accept or reject the recommendations and, potentially, move other issues into the final version of the questions put forward to voters on the November ballot.