QUESTION
Comptroller's Office On Streamlining MWBE Engagement and Ensuring Timely Payments
3:08:01
·
7 min
Council Member Brooks Powers inquires about ways to streamline collaboration with MWBEs and ensure prompt payments for contracts. Comptroller Brad Lander discusses the importance of navigational assistance and creating a system for easier identification of contracts and vendors. Deputy Comptroller Charlotte Hamamgian addresses the longstanding issue of contract registration delays, emphasizing the need for key performance indicators and targeted initiatives to address bottlenecks in the procurement process.
Speaker 1
3:08:01
1, how do you think the city should streamline collaboration and communication with MWBs?
3:08:06
And 2, what actions can the city take to make sure the contracts awarded to MWA's are paid in a timely manner.
Speaker 17
3:08:16
I'll take the first, and I'll hand it over to Charlotte for the second.
3:08:22
Two two points about kind of streamlining the relationship.
3:08:25
1, you saw in the video, the Staten Island groups talk about how much they value the work of a Staten Island overall business development corporation.
3:08:33
And Nina Flores.
3:08:35
And I don't know enough about whether that's with a contract from SBS to do it but it was clear in talking to people there.
3:08:46
You know, it's a complex system and having somebody to help you navigate it is a really helpful.
3:08:53
So I think, you know, building on that that the kind of work that she's doing and having contracts to do that is valuable.
3:09:00
And then second, I'm sorry to be a broken record on it, but I think creating a system that makes it, you know, easy to see the kinds of contracts you're looking for and for the agencies to find the kind of MWBE vendors.
3:09:15
Actually, let me focus on the noncompetitive small procurement here because that's not being bid like what, you know, the noncompetitive small procurement means for now for contracts up to $1,500,000 if you find an MWE, you don't have to bid it out.
3:09:31
That's appealing to an agency because they save the time of bidding.
3:09:35
But, of course, That also means they don't have an opportunity to put it out in the field and find new contractors.
3:09:41
And so one thing we heard from of the folks we talked to is that might be a great method if you're already, you know, an MWDE, the agency knows.
3:09:49
But if they don't know you, then it's pretty hard to break in because you never get a bid opportunity on on NCSP.
3:09:57
A way of dealing with that could be to So let's say, let's look at the things which are the biggest areas of NCSP, procurement, you know, something like analytics.
3:10:08
I'll use catering as an example just because a thing we do in our office if we're having an event.
3:10:13
And we always now look to make sure that our catering vendor is an MWE and Freddie use that method.
3:10:22
The system in which it was easy to find what you were looking for across the different types of procurement, I think.
3:10:28
Could really streamline the relationship and ended up to Charlotte on timely timely
Speaker 20
3:10:33
registrations.
3:10:35
So, yeah, I think as as Cherry you mentioned and you and you questioned the prior panel on retroactive Italy, generally speaking, has always been a long standing problem for city agencies.
3:10:50
And so it's, you know, roughly, if you're looking at all procurement methods, including the noncompetitive small purchase, about 62% of contracts awarded to MWDEs are not registered on time and, you know, further detailed in in the report, you'll see the different bands.
3:11:11
So sometimes they're just 30 days delayed, but more often than not, they're, you know, 3 months a year delayed.
3:11:19
It's not unique to the WWE space.
3:11:23
It's it's true for all of our vendors.
3:11:26
It's true for the human services.
3:11:27
Sector.
3:11:28
We're similarly at something about a 72% retroactivity rate.
3:11:32
And in those discussions that we've had, including with counsel, when we're talking about those retroactivity rates.
3:11:41
You know, this was a commitment that was made in the task force in tended to help support the contracting woes for human services but really carries over across all industries, including MWDEs.
3:11:55
Is that you can have these short term initiatives to clear backlogs and hope that you're not creating a new backlog by focusing on hearing the old backlog, but you're never gonna get to the root of the problem unless you look at key performance indicators and milestones that are part of the entire of the process, which is partly why looking at data at such a micro level is helpful because you need to look to see where are those bottlenecks, where are proposed legislative changes, where are additional training opportunities for staff and or vendors.
3:12:32
And so, you know, what what was supposed to have come out, unfortunately, hasn't come out of the non profit task force was contract stat, which was aimed to look at all of those different parts of the procurement process.
3:12:47
And how long is every first of all, what are all of those high level and and lower level steps, and how long are they all taking?
3:12:54
We've said this before, but I'll continue to say it.
3:12:56
We are the only part.
3:12:58
Our charter mandated review is also the only part of the procurement process, and it comes at the very end.
3:13:04
That has a prescribed time frame.
3:13:06
And it's 30 calendar days.
3:13:07
Right?
3:13:08
So my team, whether they have 700 contracts that have been submitted to them or 1700 in, like, the height of you know, the the start of the the fiscal year needs to get those contracts reviewed in 30 calendar days.
3:13:21
And so it, you know, without seeing what those time frames are currently for all of the other stages of the process us.
3:13:32
We can't work together to normalize what they should be and at least establish reasonable expectations.
3:13:40
That when agencies are planning for their procurement, opportunities and their procurement needs, they can plan to make sure that those contracts move through the process and get to our office with sufficient time so that our vendors are not working at risk.
Speaker 17
3:13:54
And council member Stevens has some legislative slation on these questions of time frames for agencies in the contracting process, which at the beginning of the term, I was you know, I thought, let's go through the task force work, have contract stat provide some data so you could inform that legislation But unfortunately, without contract status, it might make sense just to go ahead and pass some legislation that requires it to be collected and implemented because the current system is not working.
3:14:27
Howard Bauchner:
Speaker 20
3:14:28
And I'll just throw out another fact that we report on in in our report just sort of to hone in on the registration piece.
3:14:37
In support of agencies being able to more expeditiously make awards to MWDE vendors and to maximize the the benefit of using the non competitive small purchase method, we have delegated 2 agencies the ability to self register those contracts with conditions that they submit the packages to us so that we still are able to do a post audit review of their oversight.
3:15:04
Even when we've delegated our registration authority, the contracts that we're seeing awarded pursuant to that method are roughly 70% late.
Speaker 2
3:15:16
Thank you so much.
3:15:18
Deputy Controller and Controller Lander.
3:15:20
It's so great to see you all.
3:15:22
And this was a perfect colliding of the hearing and the report coming out at the same time so that we have more up to date data points to questions and provide oversight on Merrill agencies on.