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Council Member Julie Won's opening remarks for MOCS budget hearing
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Council Member Julie Won opens the fiscal year 2026 preliminary budget hearing for the Mayor's Office of Contract Services (MOCS). She outlines MOCS' budget, responsibilities, and key issues to be addressed during the hearing, including concerns about the city's contracting process and payment delays to nonprofits.
- MOCS' FY2026 preliminary budget totals $37.8 million, an increase of $621,000 from FY2025
- Issues to be examined include MOCS' workload, resource adequacy, timely contract payments, federal funding risks, and software updates
- The hearing will also discuss the appointment of agency chief nonprofit officers and their impact on agency collaboration
Julie Won
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Good afternoon, and welcome to the fiscal twenty twenty six preliminary budget hearing for the mayor's office of contract services or MOCs.
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My name is Julie Won, and I am the chair of the committee on contracts.
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And Mock's fiscal twenty twenty six preliminary budget totals 37,800,000.0 which includes 24,300,000.0 for personnel services to support 2,222 positions and 13,600,000.0 for other than personal services.
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This budget is $621,000 greater than the fiscal year twenty five adopted budget.
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Mayor's Office of Contract Services is responsible for overseeing, supporting, and promoting the city's procurement system by discharging the mayor's contracting responsibilities under the city charter, procurement policy board, rules, and applicable local laws.
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MOX is authorized to perform pre and post audit reviews and to provide all necessary determinations, approvals, certifications related to agency procurement actions.
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MOCs is also responsible for maintaining the city's central contract registry.
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When the city is confronted with a crisis immediately, most people think of the frontline workers, police, fire, and health care providers, and rightly so.
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But few consider the importance of people behind the scenes especially those people who make sure that emergency contracts are vetted and processed in a timely manner so that the frontline workers can provide necessary services.
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But while the contract process often happens without much public thought, it is very much in the forefront of the minds of the entities whom the city contracts with.
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And often there are many concerns regarding city's contracting process and MOC's ability to oversee and promote the city's procurement systems, provide necessary audits, and manage the central contract registry.
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Since the migrant crisis for instance, human service providers, businesses, and even agencies have reported issues regarding delayed payments, lack of transparency, and fraudulent services.
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Many of the nonprofits who the city relies on to provide our most essential service such as food provision, shelter, education, and even mental health are not able to get paid for these services in a timely manner.
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At this hearing, we plan to examine how MOX is handling its workload and to understand how the office's budget and headcount adequately provides MOX with the resources to meet its responsibilities and most importantly to allow for timely contract payments particularly to nonprofits.
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We will also examine federal funding risk to city's contracting budget.
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We hope to get updates on software and system rollouts.
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Additionally, we will discuss the appointment of agency's chief nonprofit officers and their effect on agency collaboration.
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Finally, we hope to get an update on some of the new needs added in this November and adopted plans.
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I look forward to hearing from the mayor's office of contract services on ways that the council could better support its work in this fiscal year.
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I'd like to thank contract committee staff for their hard work, Owen Kotowski, Jack Story, Alex Polinoff, and Alex Avalon.