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Council Member Stevens challenges city's approach to nonprofit payments
2:12:26
·
3 min
Council Member Althea Stevens strongly criticizes the city's rationale for delaying payments to nonprofits, particularly challenging the concept of "clawing back" funds. She questions the logic behind withholding payments from long-established organizations and argues that the current system is wasteful and potentially discriminatory.
- Stevens points out that many nonprofits have been operating for decades and are unlikely to disappear, making the fear of clawing back funds seem unfounded.
- She highlights the financial strain placed on nonprofits due to delayed payments, suggesting that this approach may force some out of business.
- Stevens also addresses the issue of underfunding in nonprofit contracts, arguing that the city benefits from the "labor of love" provided by these organizations.
Althea Stevens
2:12:26
I just have a real question before councilmember Joseph jumps in because it's been said a couple times even in this hearing and I've heard it before around one of the reasons why they don't want to give money up front because you don't want to have to claw back.
2:12:39
Why are we treating the nonprofits if they're going somewhere?
2:12:42
Because they have multiple contracts throughout the city.
2:12:46
They like it's just it's one of the things that I feel like is you guys keep saying it and it's like it's not going over my head because saying you're clawing back, they're not going anywhere and so that just does not make sense to me.
2:13:00
So I need a better understanding of like your rationale of like we don't want to have to claw back funding if we we give it to them or these advances because how often is that happening?
2:13:10
Because so we're at a place where we rather owe them than them owe us, which I don't think would happen because we wouldn't be giving out a %.
2:13:18
So I need a better understanding of the rationale behind that because that's being said over and over again and most of these nonprofits have been here for fifty, sixty, seventy years.
2:13:29
So where are they going?
2:13:35
I mean they might go somewhere because they're gonna go out of business because you're not paying them.
2:13:39
So that's the reality.
2:13:41
So I need a better understanding of this clawback because you guys keep saying, you've got said it here, I've heard this multiple times from multiple people, what's the rationale behind this?
2:14:20
Well just and just to be clear, I am no one's hard on on the nonprofit sector than I am.
2:14:25
If they're not producing, I'm one like them pull the contract, move on, and find someone to do the work because I understand the critical nature of the work that they're doing and the impact it has on the community, but it just does not make sense when we are at a place where there we're owed them so much money and we're like, well, we don't wanna have to claw it back if we give it to them and it's being held up because of it.
2:14:46
So it's and even saying that it's taxpayer dollars, they're doing service in a labor of love because we're not even talking about how we're underpaying them and how these contracts are underfunded for work that we know that if we did ourselves we would have to pay a lot more.
2:14:58
So that's a whole another conversation.
2:15:00
So it's a little disingenuous to say that it's like taxpayer dollars and we have to be careful because it's taxpayer dollars that we're actually wasting by holding these things up and having so much manpower being exhausted time and time again to pay out the money that they're owed.
2:15:15
So I think that that we have to also just kind of the language that we're using is is important and I and I believe that we need to also be rethinking some of the things that we're saying because we all already have a system that's built on reimbursement, which is also, let's be clear, systematically racist because we know that also puts different organizations in different positions to be able to get these contracts.
2:15:36
So a lot of the language you're using is triggering for me today because to say like we're gonna have to claw back, then claw back.
2:15:42
And then we also need to be looking at the contract because if we have to claw back money from an agency that isn't doing the work, then maybe we should be reevaluating if those are the folks we should be doing business with.
2:15:51
So that to me just does it it just does it has not been sitting well with me and has been said several times today, so I just had to address that.
Kim Yu
2:13:32
Councilmember, we hope nowhere.
2:13:34
You know we hope that they
2:13:51
Understood and just to scale back to the extent that it's helpful and These are taxpayer dollars.
2:13:59
They're dollars of the New Yorkers, and we are constrained by ensuring that the services that are provided or the goods that are contracted for are received.
2:14:13
So that is, you know, that statement without a lot of editorializing and package around it, is that is one of the reasons.