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Q&A
NYCEM's staffing and operational adjustments during asylum seeker crisis
2:43:01
ยท
155 sec
Council Member Ariola inquires about NYCEM's staffing and operational changes during the asylum seeker crisis. Commissioner Iscol and First Deputy Commissioner Farrell explain the agency's adaptive approach and the lessons learned from managing this prolonged emergency.
- NYCEM added one additional staff member and brought in contractors and consultants to manage asylum seeker operations
- The agency utilized its emergency supply stockpile in new ways to support respite sites and shelters
- NYCEM implemented a surge staffing model, leveraging city staff with specific skills and language capabilities
- The experience provided valuable insights for improving emergency response capabilities and resource management
Joann Ariola
2:43:01
Okay, great.
2:43:04
I think you have answered all of my questions, and I don't see any other members here.
2:43:12
So I'd just like to say thank you.
2:43:13
Thank you for always being honest.
2:43:15
Thank you for always being available.
2:43:18
And from someone who comes from a flood zone, thank you for being on the ground with me.
2:43:23
And you have a great team in place.
2:43:26
And now Oh, I do want to ask you this.
2:43:28
Were you given When you were doing the work with the intake centers, you had gotten more people, more lines of people for NISM, or you were working with the same budgeted lines?
Zachary Iscol
2:43:42
We had, I think, one additional person to join team.
2:43:48
But to be fair, we brought in a number of great contractors and consultants who were managing that process.
2:43:55
So initially and this is something that we normally do as we're managing emergencies is our team really in the early days was managing everything.
2:44:03
And then over time we displaced them with consultants and contractors that we managed, and they became a core part of our asylum seeker operations.
2:44:12
You wanted to add something?
Christina Farrell
2:44:13
Yeah, I just wanted to add that we did we were able to bring on one additional person.
2:44:18
But we also for our different units, anytime we have an emergency like that and something that goes over so long, we're able to work in a lot of our planning assumptions.
2:44:29
So for example, we had only used our stockpile, our emergency supply stockpile before for hurricanes, but we started using it for the respite sites, for shelters, for other things.
2:44:40
We also used a surge staffing model, so we had city staff that might spoken specific languages, may have mental health training or other things that could come and work.
2:44:50
So you know it's been twelve years since Hurricane Sandy, but over the last couple years one of the silver linings of all the work that we did with asylum seekers is we got to rotate our stockpile but also see how we could do resupply and everything in a very systematic way.
2:45:06
We also worked through staffing challenges.
2:45:09
We got some language capability that we didn't have before.
2:45:11
So right now as we sunset our asylum seeker operations, we are looking at what we learned.
2:45:19
Like Zach said, the different ways that we brought in contractors.
2:45:24
You know if the next big event is a hurricane or a citywide blackout or something else that he talked about in his testimony, we can use these lessons learned from the last two years in asylum seekers.