Thank you so much for your testimony.

We're gonna start our questions regarding the Keefe Group commissary contracts.

How's the Keefe Group selected for the emergency commissary contract in 2022, and why wasn't that selection through an ordinary process?

In 2022, we were coming out of the, the effects of the COVID pandemic.

And as in in 2021, a state of emergency was declared by mayor de Blasio because of severe pricing issue staffing crises.

In response to that, we had less people on-site to supply commissary services and we recognized the need to do that quickly.

And Keefe was an organization that was obviously, throughout the country established in this area regarding, commissary production.

What the Keefe contract was able to give us was the ability to have a a vendor that not only did not have the supply chain issues that we were seeing at the time through our commissary, ability to procure, but they also had the staffing needed to provide these services, package up the items appropriately, and bring them to the housing areas, rather than have DOC staff have to not only staff the, the inventory and compile all the commissary items together, but then also to bring the persons in custody to the areas where they have to pick up the, the purchases and there was additional issues with related to ordering and otherwise.

So the department at the time recognized that an emergency contract would be appropriate to give these common important commissary services without also having to move, excuse me, move per persons in custody around, to also limit the spread of the virus at the time.

What was the basis for determining Kyiv's 2020 contract should be extended when it expired?

And was there any RFP or other outreach done during the initial contract term to or extension to determine additional providers who could do the same work?

At the time, when we entered into the emergency contract with Kyiv and, quite candidly, the department was very pleased with the service they were getting.

We re recognize the importance of that.

The extension was negotiated with Kyiv because, again, to continue those services.

At the time, Kyiv was actually working at risk during for the period from when the first initial emergency contract ended to the time that the extension was granted.

And we had to, that that's the issue where we deemed the contract appropriate at the time.

But what we had done, a holistic review of all the pricing at the time we did the initial emergency contract, that there were, price comparisons per ounce made with, you know, local community pricing.

And based on that and the services that were provided and the continuing staffing crisis, a need was was identified to extend the contract.

So is your answer no, you did not do any outreach, for the renewal of the contract term to additional providers to make sure that you're comparing services on pricing?

I'm not aware of outreach at the time.

We I could circle back with you on that to see if it was done, but it was extended based on the terms of the original contract.