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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Tara Klein, Deputy Director of Policy and Advocacy at United Neighborhood Houses
2:02:58
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Tara Klein from United Neighborhood Houses testified about the urgent need to address contracting delays and late payments for nonprofit service providers. She emphasized the severe financial strain on nonprofits due to payment delays and called for immediate action to improve the situation.
- Klein highlighted that 13 member organizations are collectively owed $81,600,000, with some individual organizations owed up to $15 million.
- She mentioned several proposed bills to address the issues, including ones related to speeding up payments, creating a database, setting timelines, and reimbursing interest costs.
- While appreciating the recent COLA agreement, Klein stressed that deeper investments are needed to address long-term disinvestment in the human services sector.
Tara Klein
2:02:58
Thank you.
2:02:59
Hi, chair one.
2:03:00
Thank you for holding today's hearing.
2:03:02
My name is Tara Klein.
2:03:03
I'm the deputy director of policy and advocacy at United Neighborhood Houses.
2:03:08
We are an association of settlement houses in New York.
2:03:13
So I wanna echo a lot of what's already been said.
2:03:15
I wanted to say thank you for helping negotiate the COLA agreement last year.
2:03:19
That's really significant to supporting the human services workforce and our members.
2:03:23
3% is great, but you can't COLA your way out of long term disinvestment in the human services sector.
2:03:31
And so we really need to be looking at deeper investments.
2:03:35
We have a number of proposals on the table we hope you'll take a serious look at, like making sure that folks are paid at parity with similarly titled government workers and looking at prevailing wage schedules.
2:03:49
But I wanna really focus right now on the the contracting delays and and late payments because this is really urgent.
2:03:56
And we know that you care.
2:03:58
Like, we're hearing that come out in the back and forth today.
2:04:00
And it sounds like mocks cares.
2:04:02
And when you listen to them, it sounds like the mayor cares.
2:04:05
But when you look at what's happening on the ground, clearly, it's not coming across because things are not getting better and providers are angry.
2:04:15
Okay?
2:04:16
And, like, we we really need to address this immediately.
2:04:20
You cannot expect nonprofits to be running services without being paid.
2:04:24
You wouldn't expect that in any other industry.
2:04:26
You wouldn't work without being paid.
2:04:28
Folks are taking out loans and paying interest on those loans.
2:04:31
They are scaling back services.
2:04:34
Some are delaying payroll.
2:04:35
It's getting very urgent, and people are very angry, and we really need you to keep fighting with us.
2:04:40
I want to just read a quick quote from one of our members.
2:04:42
I have a number, of others in my written testimony that I'll send in.
2:04:46
A settlement house in the Bronx said we are experiencing delays in making payments to the vendors who supply essential services for our programs.
2:04:54
As a result, we've been forced to reduce the scale of our program events due to the ongoing cash flow challenges.
2:04:59
This has impacted our ability to fully execute our planned activities and deliver the quality experiences we aim to provide.
2:05:06
We did a quick survey of our members last week to see how much they are owed.
2:05:10
13 of our members responded.
2:05:12
Just to give you a snapshot, they're owed $81,600,000 collectively.
2:05:17
There are more examples in my written testimony.
2:05:19
Summer owed $15,000,000 at one organization, dollars 5,000,000 in another.
2:05:23
A lot of it comes from DYCD and DOE, but it's really across the board.
2:05:28
There's a lot of proposals on the table.
2:05:30
We know you have a bill about speeding up about a database.
2:05:33
Councilmember Stevens has a bill about timelines.
2:05:37
Justin Brannen has a bill about interest.
2:05:40
We support all of these efforts.
2:05:41
The speaker is talking about some new proposals now and we have to make sure we're funding mocks and all of the agencies.
2:05:46
So lots on the table, we appreciate you very much.