Q&A
Discussion on nonprofit payment delays and contract registration backlog
7:16:56
·
3 min
Council Member Julie Won raises concerns about nonprofit payment delays and contract registration backlog, questioning how these issues will be addressed given the reduced MOC budget and staffing.
- OMB officials claim progress has been made in clearing backlogs and implementing initiatives from the joint task force
- Won expresses skepticism about the ability to improve timeliness with reduced staffing
- OMB Director Jiha states that existing vacancies will be used to backfill positions and new requests will be addressed as needed
Julie Won
7:16:56
We're hearing it over and over again from nonprofits that they have yet to get paid and that they are having issues with the current, mock system passport as well.
7:17:05
Can you help clarify what your what the administration's plan is to help support mocks, clear the backlog, which has been, mayoral priority to get nonprofits paid on time and to support nonprofit providers?
Jacques Jiha
7:17:19
Yeah.
7:17:19
Let me get back to the, one time funding that, the the drop off that you see is because of a one time funding associated with the rollout of passports.
7:17:30
That's what was included.
7:17:32
Okay.
7:17:32
That's the reason why we see the drop off because they were just a one time funding that was included in this for passport.
7:17:40
So it's not like there is a drop in funding of marks.
7:17:43
Regarding the, providers, do you want to address those?
Latonia McKinney
7:17:48
Absolutely.
7:17:48
Good afternoon.
7:17:50
So Mox has had made great progress.
7:17:53
There's still more work to be done.
7:17:56
We've implemented the initiatives that came out of the joint task force, to get nonprofits paid on time.
7:18:04
So that along with the timeliness initiative, you know, they continue to work to try to clear the backlog.
7:18:12
We're much better than where we used to be, but I get that, you know, more work to be done.
7:18:17
But Passport and the migration of Passport into the system and, getting rid of the the HHS accelerator, it's it's taken time.
7:18:28
I think it's getting better.
7:18:29
We they continue to to work on that and Passport is is where we're going moving forward.
7:18:35
So I I we're just continuing to work with them to improve and, we've cleared backlogs, and we'll just try to do more to make sure that that moving forward, you know, we get better at that.
Julie Won
7:18:48
So with all respect, I have a hard time understanding how we expect nonprofits to be paid on time when you have such a lean organization or agency like Mox that already had pretty low head count.
7:19:00
And now with 2 to 1 hiring, they already are going to be short almost 17 staff members.
7:19:05
We so going back to what the executive director was saying, were you referring to the 10 intercity funding from DOE for mocks that was from the previous administration?
Latonia McKinney
7:19:16
No.
7:19:16
Our understanding is that there's been over 30, headcount added to MOCs.
Julie Won
7:19:23
Yes.
7:19:23
And they but that was to fill the vacancies that were already existing.
Jacques Jiha
7:19:28
Right.
Julie Won
7:19:28
And now we're still going to have about 17, 17 headcount losses.
7:19:33
And as we continue to have less and less people working, it's going to be extremely difficult to make sure that contracts are being registered on time and being
Jacques Jiha
7:19:41
put out.
7:19:42
As part of my conversation with the the, MACH director, we told them to use their existing vacancies to basically backfill the DOE that they have.
7:19:56
And as they progress throughout the year and, you know, and they have needs to put new needs, requests, and we will address those new need requests.
7:20:06
But we told them to use the existing vacancies to basically backfill, the, the DOE headcounts that we're about to lose.
Julie Won
7:20:14
Because we're also in this of an important migration for passport, and this is better than what we had before.
Yusef Salaam
7:20:20
Mhmm.
Julie Won
7:20:21
Paper based systems are not okay, and we're in modern day era, and we're finally moving towards passport.
