QUESTION
What measures are leading to decreased spending on asylum seekers, and how is the city ensuring service consistency?
1:13:26
·
4 min
The decrease in spending on asylum seekers results from reprocuring contracts, reducing non-essential staffing, and optimizing efficiencies.
- Contracts are reprocured, and services are renegotiated for better costs.
- Non-essential staffing is trimmed to align more closely with needs at the Department of Homeland Services (DHS) sites.
- The focus is on improving system-wide efficiencies to meet budget reduction targets of 20% initially, with an additional 10% under review.
- Standardization across sites ensures consistent services for all asylum seekers.
- The city undertakes a site-specific approach to adjustments, ensuring tailored measures for each location's unique needs.
Shahana Hanif
1:13:26
The PEG in the preliminary budget release in January anticipated spending on asylum seekers by 20%.
1:13:36
The next round of peg cuts in February cut the budget an additional 10%.
1:13:41
We're talking now about around $2,500,000,000.
1:13:45
What specifically is causing this decrease.
Molly Schaeffer
1:13:49
Sorry.
1:13:50
Can what decrease?
Shahana Hanif
1:13:59
The spending on asylum seekers.
1:14:00
So I just described the peg in the preliminary budget in January, which was 20%, and then the next round in February an additional 10%.
Molly Schaeffer
1:14:08
So we worked really hard with our colleagues at OMB, with our colleagues across the system.
1:14:14
To reprocure some contracts.
1:14:17
H and H reprocure a bunch of their services to get better that are cost from vendors.
1:14:22
We reduce staffing in certain places where we didn't necessarily need it and really to make sure that more things were in line with our DHS sites And we really focused on efficiencies across the system to meet both our 20% peg, and we will see how we meet our 10%
Liza Schwartzwald
1:14:42
how are you
Shahana Hanif
1:14:43
determining the these, like, staff efficiencies and the system wide changes.
Molly Schaeffer
1:14:53
So we wanna ensure that anybody who comes into any of our sites has the same experience.
1:14:59
And has the same set of services.
1:15:01
And so it's really making sure that all of our systems are balanced.
Shahana Hanif
1:15:06
And is that with, like, an evaluation?
1:15:09
Like, what's what's being specifically done to get that standardized?
Molly Schaeffer
1:15:13
So it's a scalpel.
1:15:15
It's not a it's not a hacksaw.
1:15:16
We're we're looking at each individual site and ensuring that we're getting everything in the right order and that it makes sense for that particular site.
1:15:25
Because no 2 sites are the same.
1:15:27
You know, they might have different means of egress We might need 1 more fire guard here than in another place, but we're really taking a comprehensive view of each site and what is needed for that specific site.
Shahana Hanif
1:15:39
Yeah.
1:15:39
That's that's important particularly with what we've been reading about some providers.
1:15:45
And so definitely curious about how specific providers are getting more streamlined or standardized within the purview of the broader DHS or OEM or the other agencies heading.
1:16:01
If there is a standardization that is very important, particularly because many of the providers have not to this degree, to this scale, managed migrants in this population.
1:16:15
In my district, we are opening a 400 bed facility in the coming weeks, and we had a community forum last just last night and lots of curiosity and concern about this specific provider have never met have having never managed a population of 400 residents.
1:16:38
And so how are how is the city managing or assessing?
1:16:44
And then and then making the choice to go into business with providers that have not managed and taking making that choice to to go into business with providers, new providers, such as the ones you've already you're already doing business with.
Molly Schaeffer
1:17:03
So this is an unprecedented emergency.
1:17:09
We've never had this amount of people coming and coming into our shelter system at this scale for this prolonged period of time.
1:17:18
We really are trying to focus on nonprofits and raising nonprofit capacity.
1:17:24
As commissioner Castro said earlier today, his team is really taking a lead on helping us figure out how to build up capacity, especially for those nonprofits that might work with traditional nontraditional populations, but may not have the capacity or the expertise to potentially house them, let's say.
1:17:42
And so it's constantly a matching of what are the providers who have capacity, what are the providers who know how to do this, who have the expertise, how do we match that, and how do we help both of those groups get to the point where they can provide the best care for the individuals and what kind of technical assistance can we provide to them?
