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REMARKS
HPD's response to contract backlogs and measures taken
2:19:49
ยท
3 min
Acting Commissioner Ahmed Tigani acknowledges the negative impact of contract backlogs on HPD's partners and outlines the measures taken to address the issue. He explains that this is a city-wide problem and HPD is working with other agencies to tackle it.
- HPD is transitioning from Accelerator to Passport system and addressing technology issues
- The agency has been involved in addressing the humanitarian crisis, which affected their capacity
- Steps taken include getting additional staff, shifting contracts from one-year to three-year terms, and improving communication with affected groups
- HPD is also looking at streamlining the contracting submission and registration process
Ahmed Tigani
2:19:49
Yeah, I mean I think you've said everything I would say.
2:19:53
We absolutely understand what this has meant in a negative way for our partners.
2:19:58
These are many of the same people that we're working on partners in preservation or homeowner help desk.
2:20:03
Like these are the same non profits we need to be solvent so that we can actually work with them on the ground to get this done.
2:20:11
I mean there's been I think a couple of drivers which has been talked about.
2:20:16
Us moving as a city.
2:20:17
This is a city wide problem.
2:20:19
HPD and other agencies have been thinking and working with mocks, working with the mayor's office of nonprofit services to figure out how to do this and how to tackle this issue.
2:20:31
For us as an agency, we've been part of the process and the transition from accelerator to passport working through those technology issues as they've come up.
2:20:41
And I think that MOX has worked to progress and make changes and try to prove that situation.
2:20:48
For us, a lot of our resources also were pulled in many different ways when we were brought in to address the humanitarian crisis with the city.
2:20:58
A lot of our role in particular involved handling contracting and transactional work from the fiscal side which doubled up on the responsibilities.
2:21:09
It's not something that we were proud to do and something that we were called to do, but it did affect some of our capacity.
2:21:19
And then staffing shortages in those roles definitely contributed.
2:21:23
But we have since been able to get additional staff members.
2:21:29
We worked with OMB to get exemptions specifically for those lines in this work around fiscal and contracting and processing so that we can do that work more quickly.
2:21:40
We've been meeting more regularly with the groups, and we find that at least getting the communication about where we are is a step in the right direction.
2:21:50
Though there's many more steps that have to move forward.
2:21:53
Along with other agencies, we committed to shifting our contracts from one year to three years.
2:21:59
So that at least moving forward we can have some time to really focus on that backlog in the past years.
2:22:05
And then separate and apart from that, there's been both a catch up on training and new measures that have to be instilled into our workforce and our outside partners so that we're using these new tools, whether it be passport or new local law standards, anything that's new, which there has been a number of things over the last couple of years, making sure everyone knows what it is, to not let that be a hang up on time.
2:22:33
Finally, there are other things that we're looking at this process.
2:22:36
Again, either it's procurement or local laws that have built out the contracting submission and registration process to see if there are things that may be outdated, unnecessary, or duplicative that are outside what the tech is trying to do, but could be measures that we work with the council and try to streamline that as well.