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TESTIMONY
Testimony by Michelle Jackson, Executive Director of Human Services Council of New York, on nonprofit procurement reform
0:45:30
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3 min
Michelle Jackson, Executive Director of the Human Services Council of New York, testifies on the critical need for nonprofit procurement and payment reform.
She advocates for making the Mayor's Office of Contract Services (MOCS) a charter-mandated agency and requiring the Procurement Policy Board (PPB) to hold public meetings to enhance its authority and public input.
Jackson highlights that payment delays to nonprofits have worsened, making charter-level reforms increasingly urgent.
Michelle Jackson
0:45:30
Hi.
0:45:31
Good evening.
0:45:32
My name is Michelle Jackson.
0:45:33
I'm the executive director of the Human Services Council.
0:45:35
Thank you so much to the commission for having me back for another opportunity to testify about issues important to the nonprofit human services sector.
0:45:42
As the director of the Human Services Council, we represent over a 80 human services nonprofits in New York City and state, and one of our primary issues is around procurement reform as many of our members well, all of my members contract with the city and state to provide essential life saving services.
0:45:59
I was really thrilled to see nonprofit procurement and payment as part of the commission for preliminary report.
0:46:04
I've been testifying.
0:46:05
I commissioned since 01/2008, and this is the first time we ever made it past the first hurdle.
0:46:11
So I'm really grateful for the attention that this commission is paying to this issue.
0:46:16
And while systems changes like HSS Accelerator and Passport have improved certain structures in nonprofit contracting, payment delays persist despite changes in administration and engagement of the nonprofit sector.
0:46:29
While there are many pathways that could lead to reform, I wanna focus my testimony on two issues, making MOX a charter an agency in the charter and also empowering the PPP to be required to have public meetings, to help with their authority.
0:46:44
This the charter, as is in the preliminary report, should establish a mandate describing the specific responsibilities for mocks.
0:46:51
It's crucial for mocks to have charter authority.
0:46:53
Having one unified agency that deals with all of contracting similar to OMB that deals with all financials and budgeting would be remarkably helpful as we see different city agencies have different approaches to invoicing and claiming.
0:47:08
They get to have a little bit of interpretation, deputy mayor's chain, who oversee those agencies changes.
0:47:14
So that would be really important.
0:47:16
The procurement policy board is also a really important vehicle for the public and for city council, controller, and the mayor to have some sort of authority or convening around procurement rules, and they do not have very they often do not have public meetings.
0:47:31
And sometimes those public meetings are about one specific issue, so so there's not a lot of opportunity for the public to weigh in.
0:47:38
And they could also be a really good check on a charter level agency like the mayor's office of contract services to be able to address issues if the public or the nonprofit sector felt that mock wasn't doing everything that needed to be done.
0:47:52
I'll end my testimony by just saying, one, we do know that the city council and the mayor have announced recent initiatives.
0:47:59
I'm happy to answer questions about them, but we don't know that those pieces of legislation will pass, and we don't know that if and that future administration will adhere to the standard advance policies and things like that.
0:48:10
And since I last testified, things have actually the data shows that things have gotten worse with over 865,000,000 in just unpaid invoices to the sector and delays across all of the human services agencies.
0:48:23
So it is even more urgent than it was a couple months ago for the charter to submit some recommendations, and HSE would be happy to answer questions about that.
0:48:32
Thank you so much for your time.
Shams DaBaron
0:48:33
Thank you.