Hi,

If New Yorkers share one trait in common, it’s this: Resilience during emergencies.

Together, we persevered through the global COVID-19 crisis. In recent weeks, we’ve helped one another amidst extreme heat and toxic wildfire smoke. And the City has scrambled to provide shelter for tens of thousands of the newest New Yorkers who've arrived seeking safety and new lives here.

One critical procedure the City uses to manage crises is "emergency procurement" — an expedited purchasing method that allows NYC agencies to contract goods and services during emergencies. Recently, emergency procurement has been used during the COVID-19 pandemic and to house people seeking asylum.

But as our latest audit of the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s (DOHMH) administration of emergency contracts for COVID-19 testing and vaccine services illustrates, there is much room for improvement in the City’s emergency procurement process for future crises.

The issue? Our audit, consistent with previous audits, found wasteful spending and a lack of effective cost controls in the City’s emergency contracting.

During the pandemic, DOHMH primarily relied on vendors to set staffing levels at testing and vaccination sites, instead of implementing a comprehensive monitoring plan with clear standards for assessing contractor performance. Relying on vendors rather than agency monitoring resulted in inadequate cost controls and inefficient staffing, despite successfully establishing testing and vaccination services in communities most affected by COVID-19.

Look, we know emergencies require urgency and flexibility. But City agencies can and must do better to control costs before and during crisis response for future health, environmental, and humanitarian emergencies.

The Office of the Comptroller sent a letter to City agencies recommending five best practices for City agencies doing emergency procurement:

New Yorkers will always be resilient, but we can’t face future health, environmental, and humanitarian emergencies alone. If City agencies — including DOHMH — follow these recommendations, we’ll save money and be able to respond to crises in more a more effective, competent way.

You can read the entire audit here to learn more about DOHMH’s administration of emergency contracts for testing and vaccine services during the COVID-19 crisis.

Thanks, 

Brad