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Q&A
Inconsistent meal costs and factors affecting pricing in NYC shelters
0:22:00
ยท
4 min
Council Member Julie Won questions city officials about the inconsistent meal costs across shelters and agencies. The discussion covers factors affecting meal pricing, including food prices, labor costs, preparation, delivery, and shelter facilities' capabilities.
- Officials explain that there is no set per diem cap, and contracts are competitively bid individually.
- Differences in costs are attributed to varying shelter facilities, storage capabilities, and delivery frequencies.
- Council Member Won expresses concern about the wide range of costs ($6 to $15) for seemingly similar setups.
Julie Won
0:22:00
Okay, we're gonna dive right into the questions.
0:22:08
So my first question is how does the city set the daily per dollar per person limit to meal costs because we're still finding across the city, across agencies, even within an agency for DHS, that there is a wide variety of per diems and we're also seeing the contracts themselves awarded for example to the same vendor, Regina's caterers, but their per diem at one shelter is $12, the shelter down the block is $15, the shelter down the other block is $8 within one council district for the same exact three meals are being served.
0:22:43
So can you help us understand how you all are calculating per dollar per person limit for meal costs and why it still is not standardized across the city, agencies, and across each vendor?
Kate MacKenzie
0:22:55
Sure, thank you for that question.
0:22:56
I'm gonna defer that to my colleague First Deputy Commissioner Barry.
0:23:02
I also just want to underscore that this is an incredibly important question, and as we can all experience right now from the volatility of prices in grocery stores, this what what my colleague is about to articulate too, we're what we do is not just ensure that the food prices alone are considered, but there's labor involved and many other factors that contribute to the price discrepancies that you're referring to.
Gale A. Brewer
0:23:28
Yes, we
Julie Won
0:23:28
were just going to ask the follow-up of if you count in the cost of inflation as well as market volatility like the bird flu and the cost of eggs, etcetera.
0:23:38
Thank
Jill Berry
0:23:41
you Chairwon for that question.
0:23:43
So I'm going to respond on behalf of just to be clear the Department of Social Services and DHS and and how the prices are set throughout the system in DHS specifically.
0:23:54
So there is no set per diem.
0:23:56
There is no set cap.
0:23:58
Every food contract is competitively bid individually to get the best price for the city.
0:24:05
And so that is one reason for the variety of prices.
0:24:10
Specifically to your question, and and, you know, Keith talked about how the food the the per diems include not just the price of food, but it's the price of food, it's the price of labor, it's the cost of preparing the meal, the location where the meal is being prepared, and the delivery of the meal.
0:24:32
So Can you
Julie Won
0:24:32
help me understand how Regina's Caterers or Riviera's caterers, it's all being produced in one warehouse in Brooklyn.
0:24:43
So how is there a difference in cost then that way if you're talking about preparation?
Jill Berry
0:24:46
Yeah.
0:24:47
Of course.
0:24:48
So the I'm gonna give you a good example, I think, of how you could have one food vendor providing the exact same food to two different shelters at two different prices.
0:25:01
So there's a variety of things that play into it.
0:25:04
Part of it is the conditions of the shelter facility itself.
0:25:08
So you may have one shelter facility that has food storage, has large refrigerators, freezers, and the ability to reheat meals.
0:25:17
That shelter can take delivery of meals once, twice a week, whatever arrangement is with the food vendor but they don't need daily food delivery.
0:25:27
So their per diem price is gonna be a little bit lower than another shelter that may be getting the exact same store meals and they and they don't have the ability to heat meals.
0:25:42
So they need to take delivery of meals every single day, that those meals need to be delivered at the time hot meals are being served and that the shelter staff are there to receive them.
0:25:53
So the per diem for that shelter for again with the same vendor, with the same meals is gonna be a little bit higher.
Julie Won
0:25:59
That is not true in my district.
0:26:02
I could name a nonprofit, for example, ICL.
0:26:05
They run more than three shelters in my district.
0:26:07
I have photos of their freezer freezers.
0:26:09
I have photos of their kitchens.
0:26:11
I have photos of their microwaves.
0:26:13
It's exactly the same setup.
0:26:15
Yet you have a range of $6 up to $15.
0:26:18
How does that make sense?
Jill Berry
0:26:21
Each shelter is bidding out these contracts separately at at and at different times.
0:26:29
It doesn't make a lot of sense financially.
0:26:32
I do understand that.
0:26:33
But but circumstances of the bids that the vendor received at the time that they were bidding out the food service for one shelter versus another shelter, market conditions can change.
0:26:43
The price of eggs changes over time.
0:26:45
Things like that do happen over time.
Julie Won
0:26:47
So what I'm learning is Bud, it's been a year since we had our first hearing, you still have not figured out how to change your process to standardize the cost of each meal and per diem per site and we're still have a huge fluctuation in costs across the board, across the city, and you still have done nothing to change it.