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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Lauren Siciliano, Chief Operating Officer of Legal Aid Society
3:33:47
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122 sec
Lauren Siciliano, COO of Legal Aid Society, testified on behalf of a coalition of legal services providers about the challenges they face with city contracting and payment issues. She highlighted three main problems: delayed budget approvals, onerous invoice review processes, and late confirmation of funding.
- Despite timely contract registration, budget approvals for housing contracts were delayed by over seven months in FY25, preventing invoice submissions.
- Invoice review and budget modification processes are inconsistent across agencies and cause significant cash flow issues.
- Late confirmation of funding, such as for indirect cost rates, makes it difficult for nonprofits to access necessary funds.
Lauren Siciliano
3:33:47
Good afternoon Chair Iwana and Chair Stevens.
3:33:49
My name is Lauren Ciciliano and I'm the Chief Operating Officer of the Legal Aid Society.
3:33:54
I'm here today on behalf of a coalition of legal services providers whose work benefits millions of New Yorkers each year.
3:34:01
We defend people against incarceration, deportation, and eviction, and are a lifeline to New Yorkers in need.
3:34:06
We're grateful for the package of legislation introduced by the council to address the contracting and payment issues, and greatly appreciate the council's focus on tracking procurement and registration timelines.
3:34:17
We certainly believe this is an imperative step, but we also believe that additional steps must be taken to address the issues that cause delays after registration, and I want to highlight just a couple.
3:34:28
The first is budget approval.
3:34:31
Just to take one example from fiscal year twenty five, despite timely registration of our housing contracts, our coalition only started receiving budget approvals in late January.
3:34:41
That meant that more than seven months into the year, we were still not able to submit invoices for payment.
3:34:46
After months of advocacy alongside with providers who were at risk of not making payroll or had to take out high interest loans, we were ultimately able to secure additional advances, and working with Director Cedillo and others, we were able to start receiving payment after these delays.
3:35:03
The second issue that I'd like to highlight is invoice review.
3:35:06
There's been a lot of discussion on that today, so I'll just echo that when submitting invoices or budget modifications, we face an incredibly onerous and ever changing process that varies from agency to agency, and these delays have an enormous impact on cash flow as well.
3:35:21
The last issue I'll highlight is that payments to nonprofits are often delayed when funding is confirmed late.
3:35:27
There was some discussion on this around the indirect cost rate.
3:35:30
So just to highlight, the rate is confirmed through the MOX application process, but the exact dollar value is often confirmed very late in the fiscal year, or even sometimes after, which makes it very difficult to access that funding.
3:35:43
I just wanna thank the council for your leadership on these issues, and urge you to consider causes of delays after registration.