QUESTION
Council Member Stevens Asks DYCD About Learning from Provider Contract Withdrawals
0:33:24
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171 sec
Council Member Althea Stevens inquires about the reasons service providers withdrew from contracts and what the Department of Youth & Community Development (DYCD) learned from these instances. Deputy Commissioner Mike Bobbitt details reported constraints due to federal funding and administrative requirements. He emphasizes the DYCD's commitment to stakeholder engagement and outlines strategies to reduce administrative burdens while adhering to regulations. The discussion also covers initiatives to prevent future withdrawals and enhance provider engagement.
Speaker 1
0:33:24
Under the stakeholder engagement in 2020, an NDA concept paper agent the agency said, interviews were conducted with providers who have drew their contracts prior to the end of their contract terms to learn more about the administrative and operational reasons.
Speaker 3
0:33:39
Summer divide or I'm sorry?
Speaker 1
0:33:41
No.
0:33:41
I was gonna finish the quote.
0:33:42
Sorry.
0:33:43
We're doing so.
0:33:44
What are the reason providers pulled out of the contracts and what's the DUI CD learned from those interviews?
Speaker 3
0:33:49
Some providers reported they felt they were constraints or additional constraints because of the federal funding and administrative requirements.
0:33:57
And that made the contract harder for them to operate.
0:34:00
So in terms of what do you see learned from that one, in terms of our stakeholder engagement, I continue to believe this is a necessary leg of the stool.
0:34:08
We wanna talk to current providers, but we should continue to talk to anybody else who gave back a contract to know why.
0:34:14
And we look where we can to clarify or to minimize any undue administrative burdens.
0:34:24
Although at the same time, on our hands can be somewhat bound because we have to report both the state and federal regulations for the use of this federal money.
Speaker 1
0:34:36
So then how do we then alleviate this from happening again, right, if there's, like, additional issues that some providers are seeing how do we moving forward try to rectify some of those things?
Speaker 3
0:34:48
1, what I think significant change we made with this round of the NARFP is.
0:34:54
Whereas historically, we had a contract floor of 50,000.
0:34:58
We raised that to a 100,000.
0:35:00
So that does mean with a fine night amount of money.
0:35:03
There's a lesser number of contracts, but it also seems to mean, and I think the response we've gotten providers, it is the case.
0:35:09
That it gives them more money to work with and they have more viable contracts.
0:35:13
So they're able to both do their programmatic work and attend to the administrative requirements that are placed upon us by state and federal oversight that we have to convey to them.
Speaker 1
0:35:23
How frequently does the US remain with community or communicate with NDA program providers.
Speaker 3
0:35:29
How frequently?
0:35:30
Providers are brought together on at least a quarterly basis.
0:35:35
By every program type.
0:35:36
So the the the senior director and the director for our portfolio, either in person or now, since the pandemic were able to do a lot virtually, will meet virtually.
0:35:48
In the 1st couple of years, the pandemic, we increased that.
0:35:50
So we're meeting on about a monthly basis.
0:35:52
Because the pandemic was so disruptive.
0:35:55
And we use those not just as oversight meetings, but as a peer sharing.
0:36:00
We continue using as a peer sharing forum.
0:36:02
So if there's promising or best practices approach that some of them are trying, we wanna make sure as a community, they're able to do that.
0:36:08
And then finally, we use those as an opportunity to introduce other resources of the city agency and and otherwise.