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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Katy Gaul-Stigge, CEO of Goodwill New York, New Jersey on Late Payments to Human Service Providers
4:20:21
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123 sec
Katy Gaul-Stigge, CEO of Goodwill New York, New Jersey, testifies about the significant financial challenges faced by her organization due to late payments from city agencies. She highlights the substantial amount owed to Goodwill and the high interest costs incurred as a result of delayed payments and contract registrations.
- Goodwill is owed $8 million from HRA and the Department of Health for various services including mental health, autism services, and TANF supports.
- The organization pays about $500,000 annually in interest on lines of credit due to late payments.
- Contract registrations with HRA are consistently five to eight months late.
- Gaul-Stigge suggests implementing a single audit system and scrutinizing metrics in the Passport system, noting that some items are being cancelled in Passport to artificially improve timeliness statistics.
Katy Gaul-Stigge
4:20:21
Hi.
4:20:21
Good afternoon.
4:20:22
Thank you so much for your time.
4:20:24
I'm Katie Golstige.
4:20:25
I'm the CEO of Goodwill New York, New Jersey.
4:20:28
And I really appreciate the legislation put forward today.
4:20:31
Goodwill was founded in Brooklyn in 1915 and we provide employment services to over 9,000 New Yorkers each year here.
4:20:38
To focus on late payments, let me just tell you, we're owed $8,000,000 from HRA and from Department of Health.
4:20:45
We provide mental health, autism services and TANF supports.
4:20:50
This also includes, as was mentioned earlier, City Council speakers initiative, but that is just $200,000 of all of that, so it's certainly not the majority.
4:20:59
We are also paying this year and every year about $500,000 in interest on our lines of credit.
4:21:06
So in total, if I add all that up, it's about $8,400,000 Essential services are just assumed to be covered with our late contracting, not just late payments but obviously the contract registration.
4:21:19
We have our contract registrations with HRA have consistently been five to eight months late in registering.
4:21:26
I just want to point out some of the important things that you've already heard but that staff are spending countless hours dealing with administrative issues that could be spent enhancing services, developing new programs or working directly with the people we serve.
4:21:39
Additionally, we must spend time fundraising for money.
4:21:42
No one has a gala to raise $500,000 to pay the bank and unfortunately that is what is happening.
4:21:48
Everyone wants to make sure that their donors and their committees and their community members are getting funding for the services they want.
4:21:58
We really appreciate this.
4:21:59
I also want to appreciate the Department of Contract Services and I want to suggest a single audit like the single federal audit and I also want to make sure that you are looking at the metrics in Passport.
4:22:11
We have had many things cancelled in Passport.
4:22:14
It's like pushing the plane back and then saying it's an on time departure.
4:22:18
They are canceling the items in passport and then saying that they are done.
4:22:21
So I would appreciate you looking at that as well.
4:22:23
Thank you.