Committee on Contracts meeting
March 24, 2026, 12:30 PM
The Committee on Contracts held its FY2027 preliminary budget hearing on the Mayor's Office of Contract Services. The committee took testimony and recorded no votes.
What was discussed
- MOCS Director Kim Yu testifies on the FY2027 preliminary budget for city contracting Mayor's Office of Contract Services Director Kim Yu presented the agency's Fiscal 2027 preliminary budget, describing efforts to speed up contract registration and payments and to expand a pilot that pays small nonprofit awards as grants.
- How does MOCS review contract performance and screen out problematic vendors? Council Member Inna Vernikov asked about pre- and post-award review and how MOCS handles underperforming contracts and groups she described as 'radical' or 'extremist.' Director Yu said reviews are case-by-case under the PPB rules and formal performance evaluations, that vendors must clear a
- What is MOCS doing about the backlog of unregistered nonprofit contracts and late payments? Council Member Althea Stevens pressed on the human-services contract backlog. Director Yu said about 2,275 human-services contracts worth $2.3 billion were backlogged as of January, and described a grant pilot that pays small discretionary awards as grants — cutting the cycle from over a year to
- Does MOCS have the staffing to keep contracts and payments moving? Chair Lincoln Restler questioned MOCS staffing, noting roughly 200 staff with about 44 vacancies and only seven people on the payment task force overseeing payments citywide. Director Yu attributed gaps to recruitment negotiations with City Hall and OMB and to attrition, credited a new
- How will the grant pilot reach the small neighborhood nonprofits that need it? Council Member Gale Brewer asked how MOCS will select the 800 providers in the expanded grant pilot. Director Yu and Chair Restler said it targets organizations receiving no more than about $20,000–$25,000 from a single agency through council discretionary funding — a fraction of the roughly 10,000
- What does the city spend to run Passport, and where are the savings in $40B of annual contracting? Chair Restler asked about the roughly $10 million annual cost of the Passport procurement system — including a $2.5 million Ivalua subscription and an Accenture systems-integrator role — and about savings across the city's roughly $40 billion in yearly contracting. Director Yu said savings are
- Nonprofit advocates urge treating discretionary funding as grants and fixing late payments Gloria Kim of the Human Services Council, John MacIntosh of SeaChange, former MOCS counsel Charles Diamond, Marcus Jackson of Encore Community Services, and Victoria Leahy of the Human Services Coalition testified. They argued that small council discretionary awards should be treated as grants
Agenda
1 item
- T2026-1383 New York City Council Budget and Oversight Hearings on The Preliminary Budget for Fiscal Year 2027, The Preliminary Capital Plan for Fiscal Years 2027-2030 and The Fiscal 2026 Preliminary Mayor’s Management Report 12:30 p.m. Mayor’s Office of Contract Services 2:30 p.m. Public Hearing Held by Committee