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Q&A
Discussion on streamlining procurement and maintaining checks and balances with a charter MOCS
1:00:35
·
4 min
Commissioner Shams DaBaron questions Michelle Jackson on whether making MOCS a charter agency would effectively streamline procurement processes while maintaining necessary checks and balances.
Jackson affirms that checks and balances from the Procurement Policy Board, City Council, and Controller would remain.
She explains that streamlining would result from MOCS having the clear authority to implement uniform policies, like standardized invoicing and partial payments, across all city agencies without needing to negotiate with various deputy mayors, thus improving efficiency.
Shams DaBaron
1:00:35
How are you doing?
1:00:38
Thank you both for your testimony.
1:00:40
Michelle, I just wanted to because you kind of everybody asked excellent questions, and you kind of got to a lot of what was on my mind, so I appreciate that.
1:00:47
I think just so I can have a understand first, I will ask if you I'm pretty sure you got testimony written that you're gonna send with more of your suggestion.
1:00:58
I'm I'm gonna ask, if do you think that this adoption from the charter level is going to help to streamline the process?
1:01:10
And you're saying create, like, sort of, like, a separate agency with more authority.
1:01:15
Do you think that there's a way that this is going to sort of, like, streamline streamline the processes to make sure that these things function?
1:01:24
And, also, does it still allow for checks and balances in the way that it should?
Michelle Jackson
1:01:31
Yeah.
1:01:32
Absolutely.
1:01:32
So I'll answer the second part first because I think there is the procurement policy board.
1:01:36
Also, there's the city council who could pass you know, if mocks issues a directive and the city council doesn't agree with that directive, they could certainly legislate.
1:01:44
I mean, we're seeing that right now in the sense that the mayor announced 50, you know, 50% ish advances for next year.
1:01:50
The council has legislation for 80% advances.
1:01:53
So there's always gonna be the check and balance of the city council and the controller, obviously, in terms of their oversight role and then additionally, the procurement policy board.
1:02:03
And I think it would streamline things because right now, the mayor's office of contract services, when they wanna do something like standardized invoicing, They don't get to just say, this is how you should invoice and, you know, for a very specific example, nonprofits get their invoices rejected one at a time.
1:02:19
And if you have a million dollar invoice that you submit to the city and they find this is a true story, not the million dollars, but it's about 250092¢ difference on a receipt.
1:02:31
The full invoice was rejected and sent back for the nonprofit to correct that error.
1:02:35
They did not get paid that 250 until that error had been corrected.
1:02:38
The mayor's office of contract services wants to do, and and it has issued a directive around partial payment.
1:02:45
Pay the part of the invoice that is not contested, and then wait for the other piece of the 92¢.
1:02:51
We'll, you know, hold that for a while.
1:02:53
They don't get to just issue that directive across agencies.
1:02:56
They have to go to the different deputy mayors and the different agencies and negotiate that.
1:03:00
And we have seen in the past over the years, certain agencies have tried to opt out of some of those directives or say, but we're special or we have a different way of doing this.
1:03:08
And so MAC should have the authority to say, we're the ones who receive invoices and send them on to OMB.
1:03:14
We should be able to have a uniform policy around things like that.
Shams DaBaron
1:03:18
So so clearly, you know, data that shows that this simple process or it's not a simple process, but this process actually delays payments, which is the main issue, and and causes sort sort of gridlock because you have to go through these other mechanism.
1:03:36
So I think someone was speaking to one of the commissioners was speaking to does that can that get handled on the whether it's the mayor's side of things from that level even if it's legislated through the city council, or does it require a charter?
Michelle Jackson
1:03:58
Well, something like the you know, if if the mayor and the city council agree on something like an invoice policy, although a lot of fall you know, mocks could do that now, but they have to go through the different city agencies and different deputy mayors.
1:04:09
And so it depends on kind of, like, something around late payments really couldn't be legislated.
1:04:14
It is a management issue, which is why having mocks as a, like, a level agency in the charter would allow for a clear stream of who's in charge and management.
1:04:22
And so in that sense, it streamlines the process.
1:04:25
I don't know if that's your exact question, but there's you know, OMB still has an oversight role.
1:04:29
Legal still has an oversight role.
1:04:31
Department of investigation.
1:04:32
So all of those things would still exist, And mocks even as a charter level agency wouldn't be able to, like, you serve that, and the city council could certainly legislate around issues of accountability and oversight and kind of components of that whole process in terms of get it from the time you get a contract till the time you get audited.
1:04:49
But mocks as an agency would have more authority to just streamline those process.