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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Jeremy Kaplan, Executive Director of Encore Community Services, on Late Payments to Human Service Providers
4:07:03
·
137 sec
Jeremy Kaplan, Executive Director of Encore Community Services, testifies about the severe financial challenges his organization faces due to delayed payments and issues with the city's indirect cost rate (ICR) system. Despite providing critical services to older New Yorkers, Encore is owed $3 million in late payments, threatening their ability to make payroll and pay vendors.
- Encore's application for a higher ICR was initially denied due to technical issues, reverting them to a lower rate that didn't cover their costs.
- While the city eventually acknowledged the error and approved the higher rate, Encore has not received any of the promised retroactive payments.
- Kaplan describes a "vicious cycle" of being passed between city agencies and OMB, with each claiming the other is responsible for the delay in payments.
Jeremy Kaplan
4:07:03
Thank you Chairs Juan and Stevens.
4:07:05
My name is Jeremy Kaplan.
4:07:06
I'm the Executive director of Encore Community Services.
4:07:09
We provide 800,000 meals a year, case management, affordable and supportive housing, and critical community services for older adults.
4:07:17
At the end of twenty twenty one, at the same time that our organization was called on by the city to provide emergency meals to 9,000 people daily across Brooklyn, Bronx, and Staten Island, our CFO completed all of the required processes to get Encore's actual indirect cost rate approved.
4:07:35
Leading up to a December 31 deadline, after weeks and weeks of asking the MOX help desk for technical assistance with their own spreadsheet, specifically assistance with a formula in the MOX spreadsheet, we got absolutely no response from the MOX help desk.
4:07:51
We submitted the application in the spreadsheet anyway before the deadline.
4:07:56
Our verified indirect rate was denied because of an error in a cell related to the exact questions for which we were asking technical assistance.
4:08:06
We were reverted to an ICR de minimis of 10% when our verified and true indirect rate was 19% and we were told by mocks to take the difference from programs and services that we're providing to older New Yorkers.
4:08:21
Two years later, Director Flores and her team reviewed the situation and agreed that the original decision was wrong and that Mox reversed the decision and said that Encore is in fact owed our true indirect rate and they instructed all of our city funding agencies to pay Encore retroactively to fiscal year twenty twenty two using our allowance amendment totaling up to $2,000,000.
4:08:46
Today, we're owed $3,000,000.
4:08:48
To this day, we have not seen a dime of that money for services that we rendered back to 2021 despite the rate being verified and accepted by the city, despite mocks directing the agencies to pay for it.
4:09:02
Our funding agencies tell me that it's being held up by OMB.
4:09:06
OMB tells us that it's being held up by the city agencies.
4:09:11
It's just a vicious cycle.
4:09:12
We need to get paid.
4:09:14
We need help.
4:09:14
We can't make payroll.
4:09:16
We can't pay our vendors.
4:09:17
Thank you so much for your attention to this matter.