QUESTION
How should vendor prequalification be conducted and improved in NYC?
0:37:16
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111 sec
The current prequalification process for vendors in NYC does not include sufficient checks, necessitating a revised or new list with rigorous, routine screening.
- Currently, the prequalification process lacks comprehensive checks, involving only basic evaluations like Dun and Bradstreet checks and reviews in the city's contracting database.
- Routine and comprehensive checks are recommended to ensure vendors remain qualified over time.
- A revamped or new prequalified vendor list is suggested, subjecting existing and potential vendors to additional scrutiny.
- The Department of Investigation recommends enhancing vetting procedures to address issues with vendors on existing lists.
Gale Brewer
0:37:16
I was gonna ask you about prequalification because it sounds good on paper, but then sometimes and I noticed in one of the news media articles, that the prequalified company was corrupt, but also on the prequalified list.
0:37:32
So how do you identify 5 prequalifications?
0:37:35
How do you particularly after an investigation like this?
0:37:39
Should prequalification be different?
0:37:40
How does it how would it work?
0:37:42
The way it should work.
Jocelyn Strauber
0:37:44
I think the list that you're referring to, and I'm I'm aware of the article that that you're mentioning.
0:37:48
I think the list that you're referring to involved vendors who had the necessary expertise but had not yet been subject to the kind of checks that we're talking about, which could be, you know, they're done in Bradstreet checks their checks in the city's contracting database.
0:38:04
There's checks with DOI.
0:38:05
Those are all of the kind of checks that would need to be done for a vendor to be placed on the prequalified list.
0:38:12
And those checks need to be done not just once, but on a routine basis to ensure that there hasn't been any changes in the information.
0:38:19
Okay.
0:38:19
And that's the kind of, you know, analysis that we're talking about before a vendor could be placed on that is not simply that the vendor is one that can provide a particular kind of service.
Gale Brewer
0:38:30
Okay.
0:38:30
So that prequalified list, I don't know this.
0:38:33
It exists now.
0:38:34
Obviously, you recommend it diff to be done differently in one of your recommendations.
0:38:39
But that would it be a new list sort of week in order to deal with some of the challenges that you just outlined?
Jocelyn Strauber
0:38:44
Certainly, it would be a new list or it would subject any vendors that are currently on the list that could provide the services to additional screening before they could be used.
0:38:53
We're we're not simply suggesting that existing lists, and I I'm aware of the issues that have been raised with some of the vendors on those lists.
0:39:00
We're not simply suggesting that those lists be used here.
0:39:03
There's additional vetting that we're recommending.
Gale Brewer
0:39:05
That's helpful.
0:39:05
I didn't understand that before.