Q&A
Staffing issues in the DOE affecting contract processing
2:12:00
ยท
74 sec
Council Member Rita Joseph inquires about staffing issues in the Department of Education and their impact on contract processing. Deputy Chancellor Simone Hawkins provides information on current processing times and challenges.
- Current caseloads for staff are double what is anticipated
- With full staffing, processing time could be reduced by half
- Current turnaround time for payments is around two weeks
- The process for handling mistakes in invoices varies depending on the type of error
Rita Joseph
2:12:00
So let's let's if your department had no vacancies for analysis supervisors and other staff to work on the intake, you would have enough staff adding how much how much faster can things move?
Simone Hawkins
2:12:15
Yeah, I mean right now I mentioned case loads are doubled than what we anticipate right and so it would move at half the time currently and right now we are around two weeks and turning around payments.
2:12:25
Again, this is a lengthy process and we need to streamline process.
2:12:29
That's something that's going to take coordination across agencies and again we have a procurement process that we must follow which I do think it provides fair fairness and equity to systems and to individuals, but I do think it's worth evaluating holistically.
Rita Joseph
2:12:45
If there's a mistake invoice and they resubmit the invoice, how long does that take?
Simone Hawkins
2:12:50
Oh, so it depends what the mistake is Cher.
2:12:53
And so it depends if it's a mistake in kind of reporting one of the budget items or payment items or it's a mistake in the enrollment.
2:13:02
That will require us to go back and open up the system in a different way to allow them to make modifications.
2:13:08
Those types of issues again assuming they were already paid it would just be adjusted in the next invoice.