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Q&A
Council Member Kevin Riley inquires about MWBE contracts for food services in NYC shelters
1:44:24
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3 min
Council Member Kevin Riley questions Raymond Medina from the Department of Social Services about Minority and Women-owned Business Enterprise (MWBE) contracts for food services in NYC shelters. They discuss the percentage of contracts going to MWBEs, the main food service providers, and efforts to increase MWBE participation in these contracts.
- Medina reveals that 53% of contracts go to MWBEs by contract number, but couldn't provide a detailed breakdown.
- Three main food service providers with contracts worth $160 million are identified: Dahl Hospitality, Wittens Culinary Group, and RC Stillwell.
- The department hosts matchmaking events to connect MWBEs with prime contractors and providers, with plans to increase frequency to twice a year.
Kevin Riley
1:44:24
Thank you, madam chairs.
1:44:25
Just wanna get clarity on the MWB question.
1:44:28
Did you say 53% of the contracts go to MWBs?
Raymond Medina
1:44:33
By contract number.
1:44:34
Correct.
Kevin Riley
1:44:35
By contract.
1:44:35
And you don't have the breakdown of
Raymond Medina
1:44:38
Who's getting what.
1:44:39
I I don't have that with me, but we can follow-up with that.
Kevin Riley
1:44:41
And you could provide that.
1:44:43
My next question, I don't know if you stated this why.
1:44:45
It says right here that DHS has three direct contracts worth $160,000,000.
1:44:51
Who are those contracts to?
Raymond Medina
1:44:53
So those are to Dahl, I believe.
1:44:56
I don't have their formal business name, but D H A L L, and I can follow-up with the Dahl Hospitality, sorry, thank you.
1:45:07
Wittens Culinary Group and RC Stillwell are the three.
Kevin Riley
1:45:12
Is there a reason why it's just three providers?
1:45:15
Is there some type of formula why it's three providers?
Raymond Medina
1:45:18
I would have to defer to our agency chief contracting officer who constructed that bid and decided on that format.
1:45:27
I know often having some redundant you wanna have more than one obviously, so you have redundancy, that's one factor.
1:45:34
And then you also want the benefits of volume, so that's another reason to aggregate.
1:45:39
I can't speak to how that's being structured going forward, but I can follow-up with more information.
Kevin Riley
1:45:47
And after the providers get the contracts, they're able to subcontract them out to different
Rafael Salamanca, Jr.
1:45:51
vendors?
1:45:51
Correct.
1:45:52
Correct.
Kevin Riley
1:45:52
How are they doing outreach to kinda get different vendors or how can vendors get, I guess, under these bids?
Raymond Medina
1:45:58
That's an excellent question and thank you for that.
1:46:01
WITSONS was recently certified.
1:46:04
Before that point, they had a 30% goal on their contract.
1:46:08
So, if those three contracts had not
Kevin Riley
1:46:10
30%
Raymond Medina
1:46:11
MWBE goals.
1:46:12
So, if those contractors were all, let's say, non MWBE contractors, they would have a goal, a participation goal on their contracts.
Kevin Riley
1:46:23
Why wasn't the format created that the MWBs could just apply directly for
Raymond Medina
1:46:27
They can.
1:46:28
They can.
1:46:29
And in this case, they did and they won.
1:46:31
So, two of the three were MWBE prime contractors.
1:46:35
In terms of what we're doing to create those inroads, like we're really committed to building a pipeline between not just MWBEs and our provider community, but our MWBEs and our prime contractor community.
1:46:48
So, in the last three years, we've had four matchmaking events where we bring representatives from the providers and from our prime contractors and we sit them at tables.
1:46:59
And then we bring MWBE's
Julie Won
1:47:01
who Do
Kevin Riley
1:47:02
you do this annually?
Raymond Medina
1:47:03
Every At least annually.
1:47:04
We move to twice a year this year.
1:47:07
And so we bring MWBE representatives in to sit across the table from them and do ten minute interviews, which is a lot more time than you're ever gonna get in a networking event, right, with this
UNKNOWN
1:47:17
Can you
Kevin Riley
1:47:17
give the council some information on those?
1:47:19
Because we have a lot of amazing businesses within our
Raymond Medina
1:47:22
Please please send them.
1:47:23
We're we're I to me personally, and I'll work with my team to invite them to these events and bring them into our pipeline.
1:47:30
Absolutely.
Kevin Riley
1:47:30
And can we follow-up after this?
Raymond Medina
1:47:31
Absolutely.
1:47:32
Yeah.
1:47:32
And just just to note, we're we're looking at one out of five vendors who attend these events later going on to win a contract.
1:47:38
So we we believe this is working.
1:47:40
And we're we're really excited for our partnership with the mayor's office of food policy who's been helping us to to boost this event.
Kevin Riley
1:47:46
Alright.
1:47:46
Thank you.
1:47:47
Thank you, madam chair.