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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Chris Watler, Executive Vice President of Center for Employment Opportunities, on Late Payments to Human Service Providers
4:03:51
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139 sec
Chris Watler, Executive Vice President of the Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO), testified about the challenges faced by nonprofit organizations due to late payments from New York City agencies. He emphasized the impact of these delays on their ability to provide critical services to justice-impacted individuals and support local employment.
- CEO is owed about $8 million, with $5.7 million from city agencies
- Watler highlighted a case where CEO provided emergency services during COVID-19 in April 2020 but wasn't paid until 2023
- He expressed support for the proposed bill package to address late payments and contracting issues
Chris Watler
4:03:51
Thank you to the chairs and to the council.
4:03:54
I appreciate your leadership on this important topic.
4:03:56
I've submitted my testimony, so I'll try to you've heard, I think, very compelling from my colleagues the challenges the nonprofit community faces.
4:04:05
My name is Chris Wattler.
4:04:06
I'm the executive vice president of the Center for Employment Opportunities.
4:04:09
We're the largest provider of transitional employment services for people leaving incarceration.
4:04:15
We are a proud member of the New York City Employment Training Coalition, and, you know, the people who come to us at CEO are people who are desperate, in need of employment, in need of jobs, and our work helps them to connect to employment in this city.
4:04:32
So we serve employers that are local, we serve justice impacted people who are leaving, and the evidence in our program shows that it reduces recidivism.
4:04:43
I'm I'm here today really in support of the bill package.
4:04:46
You know, our New York City office is owed about $8,000,000.
4:04:51
5 point 7 million of that are from city agencies.
4:04:55
And when you think about what what that pays or it pays for our staff, it pays for support services for people who are coming home.
4:05:03
There's not really dedicated funding for people who are just as impacted and leaving incarceration as there are for other populations.
4:05:10
So we really rely on the ability of our government partners to pay for services.
4:05:16
The other point that I want to make too that I think is important, CEO, the success of our model that began here in New York City, we're now in 30 cities across the country in 12 states.
4:05:27
No other every everyone in government pays slow.
4:05:31
We measure in other states by months, how how long it takes to get paid, in New York City by years.
4:05:38
And I'll give you one example in my brief time left.
4:05:40
We stood up in an emergency during COVID in April of twenty twenty to support the hotels for people who are coming out of incarceration.
4:05:50
We did not get paid for that work until 2023, even though we provided for our city at that at that point.
4:05:59
Our crews went out and supported the city in the time of crisis.
4:06:02
So it's an example of the challenges that we all in a nonprofit community face.
4:06:08
So thank you very much for listening.