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Q&A
Update on the backlog of payments to contractors
1:31:07
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143 sec
Kim Yu, Director of the Mayor's Office of Contract Services, provides an update on the overall backlog of payments to contractors, showing trends over the past few years.
- Yu presents data on the backlog from January 2022 to April 2025
- The backlog decreased from $11.3 billion in January 2022 to $5.8 billion in April 2025
- Yu acknowledges that while progress has been made, it doesn't diminish the pain felt by individual providers
- She emphasizes that the administration is taking a holistic approach to make systematic improvements to the overall process
Kim Yu
1:31:07
Thank you Councilmember Stevens.
1:31:08
The passion is you know I respect it so much and also just I appreciate the we're all showing up as our full selves, our person in our prior experience and having you share that provides a level of insight and just contextualizes all.
1:31:27
And as Michael was saying about how this is his life's work, he has been an organizer, he's been a first grade teacher, just want take a moment to share my personal background that I come from two immigrants.
1:31:41
My father had a small business and I can only imagine if my father was able to get a contract with the city of New York and then he wasn't able to be paid, what that would mean for him and our family.
1:31:54
So that is not lost on us.
1:31:57
But having said that, wanted if I could, Councilmember Stevens, I wanted to go back to Chair Wan's question about the overall backlog and while I can't provide it for the ten years, I can try to provide it for at least this current administration and Council Member Stevens I will pivot also to address the indirect cost rate.
1:32:18
And I will say that when at January 2022 at the start of the administration the overall backlog was $11,300,000,000 March 20 20 4 it was $12,700,000,000 Not trending in the right direction, but okay stay with me.
1:32:38
November 2024 '9 point '1 billion dollars January of this year '4 point '8 billion dollars and then April this month, April 2025, '5 point '8 billion.
1:32:53
And so we will see that there is fluctuations because procurement and contracting as you are all aware is cyclical.
1:33:01
However we went from double digit billion dollar backlog to now single digit.
1:33:07
And while as I mentioned earlier, that does not take away, the numbers do not take away from the individual provider, the individual nonprofits pain, and just sort of this sense of a broken promise, but we are trying to take a holistic approach and make some systematic improvements to the overall process.