Q&A
Discussion on contract advance payments and their implications
1:32:53
ยท
85 sec
Councilmember Lee and Deputy Chancellor Hawkins engage in a detailed discussion about contract advance payments, exploring current practices, potential increases, and associated challenges. The conversation highlights the complexities involved in balancing financial support for providers with fiscal responsibility.
- DOE currently provides 35% advance for school day/school year seats and 25% for Extended Day/Year programs.
- Lee suggests increasing advance amounts, referencing practices in other agencies.
- Hawkins explains past experiences with higher advances, noting challenges such as providers owing money to the city and cash flow interference.
- The discussion explores the possibility of tying increased advances to specific timelines and outcomes to mitigate potential issues.
Linda Lee
1:32:53
And so in terms of your contracts that you have through DOE, what's the percentage of advance that you give them?
Simone Hawkins
1:32:59
So it varies and so I believe, I don't want to misspeak, I believe we give 35% for our school day school year seats and then 25% for our EDY.
Linda Lee
1:33:08
Okay is there any room to increase those amounts because I know other agencies have moved to do that as well.
Simone Hawkins
1:33:13
So we have done that in the past intermittently, I remember that from personal experience.
1:33:19
We would have to consider the recruitment schedule associated with that and we have seen by increasing the advance, it has led to providers owing the city money because they weren't incentivized to submit invoices nor are we able to recollect on the advance and so it also interfered with their cash flow.
Linda Lee
1:33:37
But in the advance can't you also require that certain things be done by a timeline?
1:33:40
So in other words with that there should be some more outcomes and guidelines perhaps to alleviate that issue because I almost feel like it's a catch 22 because in sometimes the situations are is that because they don't have the advance they cannot do the recruitment.
1:33:54
So I think it can go both ways.
Simone Hawkins
1:33:57
So I'm open to having the conversation, think there's been some situations in the past that did not yield really good outcomes for the city when we've increased the advance.
1:34:05
I think we actually went as high as 40% if I'm remembering correctly and it really put a lot of the programs in a difficult spot and so I'm happy to explore that further with you and others to really see what's feasible or what's not.
Linda Lee
1:34:18
Okay and to the Chair's point as well as what Councilmember Stevens was saying, because just going through your testimony, I know that you outline a lot of the issues like need to evolve, the system needs to evolve to better meet current needs, inflexible contracts, know, the rejiggering of seats and you know leading to unhealthy competition, inefficient use of resources.