 It is a good morning indeed, yes. It is indeed a celebratory moment of getting stuff done. Yes, administration embarked on a clear the backlog initiative to right a simple wrong. Non-profit providers like the people in this room are the non-profits in the house? Yes. Who perform essential services for communities were just not getting paid on time. Government was not doing its part plain and simple. Our mayor said enough is enough. In an inter-agency effort, ten agencies work tirelessly in partnership with the controller over 12 weeks, and that's what brings us here today. I'm now excited to introduce our first speaker, Mayor Adams, to share the results of our 12-month initiative. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much. And here at Mercy Center, it's really fitting because they were saying mercy, mercy me, you know. And this is the part of our administration that's not the sexy part, but it's the important part. And you know, people have asked over and over again, what are the three things you're going to do? What is the one big thing you're going to do? You know, the one big thing is make government work, make government work. And you're going to look and see how we are going to partner with our partners in the council, the board of president, the state, our controller, and just make government work. You can't continue to spend a hundred and something billion dollars at taxpayers' dollars, and we keep getting this inferior product. And this is what we're doing. The controller and I spoke immediately after the primaries, and we stated let's zero in on those things that are making our government inefficient. And the top of the list was what we were doing to nonprofits. We had them on the front line doing the most difficult work, filling the gap, yet when it was time to pay them for their services, we had them go through the bureaucracy that got in the way. And I'm just really proud that the controller and I put the team together to make sure it happened in the right way. And you know, thanks so much, controller, for what you have partnered with us in the council. And their job is real. You know, you don't realize every day because they're doing it so well, so you don't even realize the gap they are filling from learning and teaching people how to learn metalwork construction and design, to help immigrants fight for their rights, to feed in people with food pantries, to do an afterschool program, the anti-violence work, going to hospitals and dealing with people who are the victims of domestic violence. All around us are the nonprofits as they are helping, preventing eviction after COVID. There were a number of families who were in a verge of eviction, dealing with the pressing issues that are impacting our entire city. And I know how important nonprofits are. You know, it was the Salvation Army as a child that was there for our family over and over again, just giving the work and services to our family. So we had this clear, the backlog initiative. People said it was not possible, but we knew it was. And over the last 12 weeks, we were able to clear up and unlock $4.2 billion in money that 460 large and small providers. Think about that, $4.2 billion was bottlenecked, and we were able to clear over 2,600 contracts. We have dealt with more than two-thirds of the city's backlog, more than two-thirds, 12 weeks, more than two-thirds of the city backlogs in contracts. Government inefficiencies forced some providers to take loans. They were unable to pay salaries, and now look at the next level of that, many of the employees were black and brown and overwhelmingly women. So the rippling effect was actually turning the needs of those nonprofits to the service providers needed nonprofits so they can stay in their own homes. That's what this backlog was doing. Providers even struggled to put food on the table for their own employees and families. Paying our nonprofits providers on time has a positive rippling effect throughout our entire city. It allows them to deliver services right when they're needed, pay employees. It allows them to ensure that they are given the services that they want to provide. And right here in the borough of the Bronx, according to a 2020 report, of more than a third of all brokers are employed by nonprofits. More than a third of all brokers are employed by nonprofits. You can't just continue to allow the boulder of bureaucracy to crush these good people that are doing good work. Or the red tape to tie them up and being able to keep the lights on, or this beautiful space like here to provide the service that they want to. And we're going to continue to improve because our nonprofits provide, provide to deserve it, and New York is expected. This has taken a team effort to cut through a thorny jungle of procedures. And again, this team came together being led by my two deputy mayors, Deputy Mayor Wright and Deputy Mayor Wins Iso, and a real partnership as I stated. The controller has an awesome job to make sure he monitors the dollars of city residents and taxpayers, and he has, there's some uncomfortable moments when you're doing that. But there are too many areas that we agree, and that is what we said from the start. Let's look at the areas we agree, you do your job of making sure you monitor our agencies. And when we can stand side by side to show the efficiency of government, we're going to do that. And that's what Brad Lander did, and then Director Lisa Flores. She just spearheaded this, using her ability to find where the problems are. It was one of the most important acquisitions we made in this administration. And what she's doing is just amazing as we continue to streamline the processes that are just getting in the way of getting stuff done. We want to make sure that our systems are as transparent and as efficient as possible. And never forget that your city government answers to you, and we're going to make sure they answer loud and clear. Clearing a nonprofit backlog is a clear signature of this organization, this administration of getting stuff done. You can't get stuff done if bureaucracy is in the way of getting stuff done. And when you look at this administration, you're going to leave with a more efficient government. We have been wasting taxpayers' dollars. I cannot say that enough. So what is my signature issue? Keep my government to be efficient, productive, and produce a better product than we have produced with taxpayers' dollars. Thank this entire team. I want to thank the nonprofits who are here providing these services every day. We could not do what we do in this city without you. And so today, instead of you saying mercy, mercy me. You're saying finally they heard us and they got it done and we're going to continue to get it done. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. As the Mayor mentioned, this is only the beginning. Our goal was not just clearing the backlog, but also preventing another one from ever happening. Really fixing it, not just dealing with the symptoms, but getting to the root cause. So under the upcoming Mayor's Office of Nonprofit Services, we're going to operationalize and institutionalize the work that we have done. So this administration has already showed its expertise and experience in making government work in these six and a half, seven months that we've been here and it's time to continue that work. Because the reality is more than ever we need our nonprofit partners to tackle the issues that we have today. We need upstream solutions to tackle the causes of systemic issues. And these providers are all upstream and they need the resources to do their work. So next up, I would like to introduce our commissioner, one of our fearless leaders for this effort of the Mayor's Office of Contract Services, Director Lisa Flores. Thank you Mayor Adams and good morning everyone. It is truly an honor to be standing here with you today and all of those responsible for ensuring the success of clearing the backlog initiative, the people who actually did the work. Let me just say, I've been in government for a long time and wow, 4.24 billion dollars unlocked for nonprofit providers for over 2,600 contracts as the Mayor said in just 12 weeks. That's years of backlog in 12 weeks. And I'm sure everyone standing up here agrees that this is just the first step of rebuilding our relationship of trust with our nonprofit providers. And they are really the lifeblood as mercy center of our communities. We began this journey under extraordinary leadership of Mayor Adams and Deputy Mayor Wright and Deputy Mayor Williams Isam in partnership with our partners in the controller's office. City council and fellow agencies with the intent to place the highest priority on procurement, which no one usually likes to pay attention to. And the operational success to make sure that our work had the highest possible impact on the downstream, which are the clients that receive these services. And for our valued partners in the human services sector and all the New Yorkers that they serve. This is the type of initiative and commitment that you hope to work on as a public servant. The city collectively acknowledges there's a problem. You map out the solution and stakeholders for many levels of government all come together and follow it through to completion. The challenge seemed insurmountable, but it was met with the necessary dedication on precedent and collaboration to get it done. And I want to commend the agency project manager, some of which are here today. And agency staff who frankly moved mountains within their agencies to make sure business as usual was not the case here. And the results speak for themselves. Among them are members of my team who are amazing and really embody and get stuff done to the core, Anne Velary, Elke Denizli, and Tali Ledger. Thank you so much for all of your work because my work is really your work and I'm nothing without all of you. And we would not have achieved so much in such a short period of time without all of you. That being said, the work continues. To our not-for-profit partners, I want to say that we acknowledge that there is a lot more work to be done and there's a long list of recommendations over the many years of procurement bureaucracy that have built up for us to continue implementing. And we look forward to fixing the underlying processes and the policies that got us here in the first place so that we never have to have a backlog initiative again. And we'll continue to get stuff done. Thank you. Thanks so much, Commissioner. I also want to give a shout out to Michael Cedillo, who really helped drive us home. I'm so pleased to introduce our controller. He knows what it feels like to lead a nonprofit, and he has been steadfast in his commitment to this community and this industry, and particularly in his new role. He started off, as the mayor said, during the transition, really with this idea, to really have a joint task force to focus on this issue. And so proud and pleased to work alongside you, Comptroller Blander. Thank you so much, Deputy Mayor. Thank you. I came here at Mercy Center for hosting us. The mayor went with Mercy Mercy Me. I've been listening a lot these days to that Mary Gouthier song, Mercy Now, I don't know if you know that. It's like we all could use a little mercy now, and I've been feeling that a lot in these pandemic times. It's wonderful to be here with Deputy Mayor Wright and Williams Isom, with our mocks director, Lisa Flores, with the Bronx Borough President, Vanessa Gibson, contracts committee chair, Julie Won from the city council, and Diana Ayala from this district, and of course, and especially with the mayor. The mayor really got at this as soon as we both won our primaries, and then again after we won the general election, we sat down together and he said, Brad, the goal is to make government work better, and so we need a relationship that helps make that happen. We want checks and balances in government, and sometimes that's critical. That means a story in the paper where something's getting called out, but if we let it only become that kind of relationship where like this cross-pointing fingers, then we're not doing the job of making sure government gets its work done better, and I just want to say I really appreciate the spirit that you have brought to that. One area where we both knew that was true was in getting our nonprofit human service providers paid on time, and let's just think about what some of them are doing today. It's not quite as hot as last week, but it's still pretty hot out there. So our seniors need cooling centers in places that they could go so they're not getting heat stroke. A ton of those are nonprofit organizations. The price of food is up as a result of inflation, and more and more people through the pandemic, but still today are relying on emergency food providers, overwhelmingly nonprofit human service organizations. We're lucky to have this great summer rising and summer youth employment programs, both at record numbers now, and while some folks are in public schools for those programs, a whole lot of the work is being done by community-based organizations, by youth service groups, and by nonprofits employing people. We know that crime is at levels that we've got to get down, and so we're putting more people out on the streets to build solidarity and safety in their neighborhoods, all those cure violence organizations, nonprofit human service providers, and everything I just said is probably less than a quarter of the total work that those human service and cultural and nonprofit groups are doing there, doing the core work of government, of democracy, but they're doing it through contracts. And yet, if you look at how long they're taking to get paid, and like, let's be real when we say clear the backlog, what the backlog means is most of those contracts started last July 1st, right, 13 months ago, and now we've cleared two thirds of them, but that still means we've got a third, and all of those were contracts that when we came into office were not registered, and therefore no one was getting paid. All those folks I mentioned, those organizations, not getting their checks. And just imagine if we tried to say to a public school, or a police precinct, or a firehouse, please begin the work on July 1st, because we like our people to be safe from fires and crime and get educated, sometimes 300 days from now will register your contract and start the money flowing, like there's just no way you could run a city like that. And yet that's what we've been doing on the contracted work, which is about 20% of the budget, and much more than that in the social service and human service work we're talking about here. So we knew that was unacceptable. We said right at the beginning, we're going to do something about it. I reached out to the deputy mayor when she was leading the transition. Amy Sanham, and who's here, and Annie Levers in our office, got to work together. But then they handed it off to this great team. And you've heard about the administration side from Lisa and the deputy mayor. We're lucky in the controller's office to have an amazing team in our bureau of contract administration and most of the extraordinary work on our side. So in the time since January 1st that we've started, they've registered 12,000 contracts. Over 2,000 of them are these ones in clearing the backlog. We're the only ones at the moment in this system on a clock. We only have 30 days to register. And you might think they would say, okay, we'll get it done in 30 days. That's on the clock. Under the leadership of deputy controller Charlotte Hamamjian and assistant controller Mike D'Ambrosio, the average time they're taken to register a contract is 16 days, about half the time that the and at the same time working in just such a close and constructive partnership with the mayor's office of contract services, all the contracting agencies, and just trying to build a different spirit of how we fix a problem. It's got to be done collaboratively. And it really is. You can see it here today. You know, you can feel it in the ways that we're talking about it with each other. But that's really in every one of these contracts is staff putting a lot of hands on it and making sure because look, we're making sure it's appropriate as well. We have to make sure the work was done to vet that contract to do the responsibility determination to make sure the money's in the budget to make sure it went through the process. It's supposed to do that is our job also to make sure that we have those checks and balances. But we are finding ways to get it done on time. And as director Flora said, we're really proud of all the work that's been done to clear the backlog. But we also know that is just step one. We want the system to be dramatically improved. So we don't have these large backlogs in the future. And there is a lot of work underway beyond clearing the backlog to improve the systems that got us here. That's going to take a while. But I just want everybody in the room to know there really is tremendously diligent work underway to do it. We reached out to a lot of you to hear what wasn't working for you. And collectively with the mayor's office with mocks with all our partners in contracting, we are hard at work drilling down on the pain points and making the system work better. I will just end with one kind of funny story. I'm on the way up here this morning to the press and I get a call from the chief of staff in the Brooklyn district attorney's office. And she's like, Oh, what are you up to? And I'm like, Well, I'm on my way to what's going to be by far the most exciting bit of news that happens in New York City. Today, I know you're not used to headlines worried about little things like crime. And you know, what do you need? And she's like, Well, we have some contracts that are delayed. We're starting this great new program in central Brooklyn to do gang interruption and community safety work. But we're contracting for them with resources we have in the Brooklyn district attorney's office. And we can't do that work if we can't get the resources to the groups who are on our partners. So it really is the most exciting work happening in New York City today. Mr Mayor, thank you for the partnership and a congratulations to everybody who's making it happen here. Thank you, Brad. And the next speaker really represents a big part of the reason that we are here. Mercy Center is an incredible organization. I am from the Bronx, right? President Bighamson, that's right, has done incredible work for decades and decades. And we're just so proud and pleased to have him as a partner with the city of New York Executive Director Steve Stritch. Good morning. On behalf of everyone at Mercy Center, it's my pleasure to welcome you and to thank you for being here with us. I also want to express our appreciation, our true gratitude for this initiative. We are a community based organization. We have a budget of $4 million. We don't charge for any class, program or service. So that means we have to raise $4 million each year. And this funding represents a quarter of that 25% $1 million that helps us to do the work that this community needs. And in our communications, we've been saying Mercy Center, Mercy when the world needs it now. And the world does. We're a community center that has been here for almost 35 years. We expanded to a second site eight years ago. We serve 3,500 members of this community each year, starting with the youngest who we babysit so their parents can go to classes through school age children who come here for after school, come here on Saturdays, come for summer camp. Our summer camp just ended yesterday, but we provide those services to children to babies to children and adults. Most people come to learn the English language and that's our ESOL classes that help them to get jobs to get better jobs to transform their lives. This is what we this is what we do and we couldn't do this without this support and to hear that this is ongoing and we'll get better each year makes it so much better and so much more comforting for us to know that we can continue to do this much needed work now when the world needs it most. So thank you. Thank you there and everyone who worked on this initiative. We are very grateful. We have we have three dynamic electives and I just want to give them a minute because they know what these nonprofits mean to us and mean to this borough and mean to the city. Just want to give a moment to amazing our president of the Bronx, Vanessa Gibson, Councilor Mariella and Councilman Wong because we get to these contracts through them. All right. Good morning, everyone. So in addition to saying mercy me, I will say oh happy day. This is truly a great day for the city of New York for the hundreds and hundreds of non for profits that serve New Yorkers every single day during the COVID-19 days of two years of this global pandemic. It was the non for profits that were out there on the front lines serving our families serving our children feeding our minds providing healthy food options and reminding Bronx sites and New Yorkers that they were not alone. So it's super important that we are here today at the Mercy Center because this was one of the hubs that many of the families of the South Bronx have benefited from and I want to thank our mayor Eric Adams because a few weeks ago we were here at Mercy announcing a new contract on food services through HRA and other city agencies and it was there that we were giving our food. We were talking to many of the clients that came here and I took the time to visit on my own and it was so impressed by the array of services, the young people, the parents that are getting ESL classes. That's what non for profits do. We are on the ground every single day. So this initiative 12 weeks of clearing the backlog of making sure that we do what government is supposed to do. So when I say oh happy day, I mean that it's a happy day that non for profits are recognized and valued and paid the contracts that they deserve and are owed. And so I want to thank our deputy mayors. I want to thank our mocks commissioner. I want to thank all of our agency partners and certainly recognizing Comptroller Brad Lander and the entire team because it truly takes a labor of love to get this work done. This is an administration that doesn't talk about it, but is about it. We talk the talk and we walk the walk. We're going to make sure that government is more efficient that we clear the backlog that we make sure that we pay our non for profits on time so that all of you can continue to provide the human services, the social services, eviction prevention, housing assistance, medical care, all of the wraparound services and trauma informed care that New Yorkers rely on every single day. So the most important message for you, our non for profits. I want to say thank you on behalf of the Bronx. Thank you for restoring hope for so many of our residents and families during their greatest hour of need and to this administration, to our mayor and to everyone at city hall that gets it. Thank you for recognizing the value and the importance of our non for profits. We look forward to working with all of you as we not only clear the backlog, but we make sure that government is more efficient now than ever before. Congratulations, everyone. If you know me, you know, I hate speaking after Vanessa because there's nothing else to say. She I would say I'll end the way. Thank you. But she even said that. So thank you, Vanessa. But no, thank you. I really, you know, these these people deserve a really big round of applause because this is this is a huge deal. I come from the nonprofit world and I know that you're making miracles with, you know, with crumb sometimes. And I was very fortunate that I, you know, I always ended up going home with a paycheck, but I know that a lot of my colleagues did not. And that meant, you know, potential evictions that meant that children went without, you know, the luxury of a book bag, you know, for school and clothing and really the essentials that, you know, families need to to get by. So this not only impacts the work that we're doing here, which is wonderful work, it's God's work, but it also impacts the individuals that come here every single day and leave their lives here, right, trying to make the community better. So I want to thank the administration and I obviously want to thank Brad because this has been a long time coming. I think this is one of the number one complaints that we get is elected officials and our profits are really just desperate and this is really, really, really going to be life changing for them. So thank you so much. And that's how you do it Vanessa. Good morning. My name is Julie One. I'm the contracts chair for the city council. And when we think about the last two years or as a shift in our city, the way that we think about our workers, the word essential got added to a lot of our workers. And we talked about essential workers. What do we think of? We thought about the health professionals, but we often forgot about the very people that were giving out the bread, the giving out the groceries, taking our children in when you were an essential worker and you had to go to work but schools were closed. A few weeks ago, I got a phone call from a friend that I had met while I was running for office doing food distribution. He called me. He said, Julie, I used to work at this nonprofit. You know where I worked, but the contract has ended and I'm out of a job. When we talk about these contracts, not only are they the lifeline of the services that our city provides, that the government simply cannot do because of our capacity. They are truly our partners in the work that we do, but this is also the jobs that continues to allow our black and brown folks, especially our immigrants and the most vulnerable to be able to be part of the work that we do. And I just want to give a special thanks to our mayor. Mayor Adams has allowed us to continue to work with our partners and continue to elongate the work that we were doing. And as our Comptroller Brad Lander has said, this is the backlog from last fiscal year. This was the work that they were doing, despite not having the payment from the city because it was what needed to be done in our city. Those were the hands that truly fed our people. And for me, as a new council member, it is so incredibly enlightening and empowering to see our mayor, the Comptroller, our deputy mayor, as well as our commissioners come together and say, we may not agree on everything, but there are commonalities in what we see, what we believe, and we're going to get it done. 4.24 billion dollars is not a light number. 4.24 billion dollars, I'm going to say it again. When we talk about resources for our people that are the most vulnerable, that suffer the most during COVID, those are the very dollars that were spent that are now going to be received by the providers that do this work. So I just want to thank our leaders as well as our council that continues to work together. What you see here is a team and it hasn't always been this way. And I'm so incredibly thankful to be standing here with you all. Thank you so much. We're going to bring the check and you know, all come here, Brad. Let's see. No, they're going to write their story. Yeah, well, you think but once one sentence should really focus on the subtext of what you just stated, Brad and I are probably on some issues so far apart. But for these men and women in government to say we have our philosophical differences on things. But what are the things we agree on? We agree, nonprofit should be paid and they should be paid on time. And this is a symbol of how between elections, how you get work done. And it's only the beginning. We are going to continue to say how do we get this inefficient city to function? I told Brad when I ran for office, audit us, look into every agency because we acknowledge their problems with his auditing power. He's able to go into our agencies and say, here's the problem and then we can go in and fix it. And I'll just say we have an example of that even just from last weekend the week before. A lot of you were there when we released our ferry audit. That got a lot of attention calling out the problems. We of course, as we always do, have shared that in advance with the administration. So they got some time to make a response. They know it's coming. That wasn't one where we stood together like this but it was one where a week after the audit came out, the mayor and EDC stood up and said we're making a lot of those changes. Not everyone. There's still some things that we'll disagree on and keep pushing on and keep working on. But really significant changes. So I just want to say that's what we're setting up. And the headlines is more attractive when Adam's and Brad clash. But give us a headline of Adam's and Brad. All right, Michael. Come on. We got we got open to on topic on topic. Good morning, Mayor. I wanted to ask, I know a lot of different agencies contract out to nonprofits, but maybe the Monks commissioner can answer this better. Which agency has the biggest log jam or the biggest delays? Do you have a list of it? And do you know why some agencies might have it might just be the volume of nonprofits they contract out to? But I don't know if you have any data on which agencies kind of have the biggest delays when it comes out to paying nonprofits. Yeah, we definitely as part of this initiative, you know, started to build a practice of monitoring performance. And so we definitely know from the contract volume. There are certain agencies that have huge volume that are conducive of moving process through the process faster if it's all the same type of contract. And then we have organization agencies that have very complex contracts that take longer. And I think really what's important at this stage is that we use this process to really learn where the pain points are and then learn from them. And really, we monitor the performance not to say you're doing a bad job, right? And that's a real shift. It's not to blame. It's not to point fingers. It's where are the problems and then how do we find solutions to address those problems? And so we had two thirds of the backlog cleared in 12 weeks and we still have a third to go when we're not taking our eye off the ball. And we're going to continue with the deputy mayors and their support. And actually agencies have come together and provided resource for their sister agencies all hands on deck to continue moving those contracts that still haven't gone through. And in fact, some of the contracts in the backlog were not only delayed one fiscal year, they were delayed multiple fiscal year, two and three plus fiscal years. And so, you know, we did a lot, but we have a lot to do and we're going to make sure that we provide the support to get through them. Let me have one more year because in addition to the question about sort of individual mayoral agencies, this is an area where the council really is a full partner in this initiative as well and not just like a visitor at the presser because discretionary contracts are a big chunk of this challenge. They get awarded at the very end of the process, and that means it's already July one, lo and behold, just as they've adopted them. And, you know, that's a lot of sort of contracts on the smaller side, and then they go to the agencies after that. So we're also really drilling down with the contracts chair and with the speaker and with council operations and making them a full part of this because I think that's one area where in addition to looking at individual agencies, we can really address the backlog and the delays. Which agencies I got? I'm not asking somebody to be singled out, but I'm just curious which ones have kind of the bigger lockdown and which ones are a little bit simpler. And we don't want to do just that because as was just mentioned, we don't want to play, you know, I got you, you failed, we want to improve. And we're going to consistently monitor. So we don't want to single out any particular agencies because in many cases, not therefore, you know, it's, it's a system that built a culture of basically telling the non-profits we get to you and we get to you. And we're just changing that system. I see you reminded me. Why was there such a long jam and what's in place now to prevent this from happening again? Good thing you wore your favorite beads because you were going to be here. I've been doing procurement for a long time and it's a multitude of multi-layered reasons. One, I think what you've seen displayed here in terms of collaboration has not happened in the past and collaborating with the controller's office. It is an unprecedented partnership and it's an unprecedented partnership to even have discussions with the council about how do we change the process going forward. And that's a big piece that can't be overlooked. But also the rules that we have now are based on decades and decades of bureaucracy that have built up oftentimes to address a particular issue. There's a scandal. There's a problem. And so everyone says let's add more processes to protect ourselves from that happening. But no one ever goes to the process of well now let's remove some. And so we really are going through the process and that's why it's so important to have laser focus and the commitment across all layers of government and that procurement is important. You know nothing gets done without procurement. It's really representation of the values of the administration. And so as we go through this process it will continue beyond the backlog initiative. It's being hyper focused on what state law what local law what burdensome processes can we untangle and really be procurement system for this day and age not one from we have rules that say you can buy a VHS tape right. We got to move forward. I think there's a there's another thing quite frankly we've just taken advantage of nonprofits because we know that Mercy Center is going to do the work that they're going to provide the services for children and their families whether they get paid or not. And it's a different system for for profit companies they're not going to do the work until they get the check. And so that is also a part of it. It's about respect and valuing nonprofits as our partners. Let me just give you two examples of the kind of steps that are still in this process that make it take on average over 300 days. So one is every contract has to be available for a public hearing. The public hearing process can add over a month 99% of the time no one goes to the public hearing. So we're not in this was you know a decades ago rule so we're not even providing good transparency because people aren't really involved in the process. And yet you know a month or more is being added as a result. Another example I just learned about is that for larger contracts this is only contracts over $10 million. The fiscal control board which was created in the 1970s said we want a shot at those contracts. The fiscal control board doesn't really even do anything anymore. They you know and then their ability to put the city in a fiscal control period is long ago gone. And yet the larger contracts still spend time in that review. So we're working again and that's just two of many when we say we're doing work behind the scenes not just to clear the backlog but to look through it like the painstaking steps all along the process and see which ones are really necessary because we do need to make sure that we're protecting the taxpayers against fraud, registering the contracts appropriately ensuring that there's no nepotism all those things. But which ones are outdated and could we find ways to streamline? When we talk about procurement how many of you in this room really understand what city procurement means? How many of you in this room can explain to me what the city procurement processes? I'd like to see a raise of hands. So can you imagine being a 24 year old at their first job at a nonprofit or you may be someone who is working for a nonprofit especially those that serve under serviced marginalized groups like immigrant groups who English is not their first language or someone who may be working at a nonprofit without higher level education trying to navigate the New York City procurement process. And we have made leaps and bounds especially with Commissioner Flores for the procurement process being modernized in the city through passport. It used to be a paper based process where someone would fill it out by hand, hand it in, go through fax machines between agencies and now it is finally on a streamlined single passport application. But that does not close the gap for the general understanding and comprehension for those who are applying for the steps that we currently have there are also backlogs or hiccups when the applicant themselves are missing documents or if the applicants themselves do not know how to navigate the system or what a terminology may be within the procurement system. So it goes both ways where we obviously as a government have to modernize as well as streamline and unified and standardize the way we work but also on the applicant side we have to do a lot of education as well as accessibility when it comes to language and understanding of the New York City procurement process as well. Thank you. Comptroller mentioned the financial control board and you know looking at things like let's change the process and make sure we're not you know allowing for malfeasance. What is the process like that for example but I know there are other ones like to change that like Mayor Adams can you just say we're changing this as a matter of policy or does the council have to pass bills like how does that work exactly? That's a great question. And no I can't just say let's change this. Because if I do that Michael is going to be writing a story. So you know I just can't do that. You know he wants to. No each area that we will like to change we have to identify who has the oversight to determine how do we present that change and how we get the approval for that change. So the team looked at here are areas we believe we need to change they're outdated and now we're going to follow. Okay how do we get that change some things we could discretionary change but those things that we can't we're going to follow the right procedures and make sure they get done the correct way. Was there any this backlog that you guys have tried to address now is there anything unique about it compared to other ones? Was it was it in part caused by COVID or was it really just kind of another example of how the processes created the situation? I would say that it's sort of perfect storm. You had not for profits obviously previous fiscal years as many have said who continue to show up when we need them not only show up for the work they're contracting for but in emergencies to show up for work that we asked them to do to meet the needs of the community and so with the pressure of COVID with the pressure of the economy and then really just everyone trying to get the work done of addressing COVID and the immediate there are multiple years that things sort of did not necessarily have full focus and there are multiple years that really it's just a symptom of the problem of every time that we do a new initiative every time we add money we're often doing that through amendments and so agencies make progress and then they have to double back and start all over again right and that's huge part of what we want to change going forward both what we can change without any legal legal changes or approvals but also really we're trying to be as bold as possible in the future and everything's on the table so that we never have to be here again and that the not-for-profits who are our partners who really are an extension of us we can't do any of the services that we provide without a nonprofit partners that we have a relationship that really values that partnership and that we're never here again that's left is there anything special about them that they didn't get cleared within the 12 weeks are they more complex are those some of the longer contracts that have unusual hiccups in them it's a number of factors I think part of this initiative that really was wonderful to watch was the collaboration within agencies and the focus from the commissioner on down throughout the city government of procurement's importance and so we learned a lot of lessons just that we hope to continue in terms of that collaboration but we also as I said earlier learned that there are some pressure points within agencies and with their portfolios in some cases that have external funding it's not just city funding so there are other steps in some cases that have other partnerships that are part of their decision-making process to move forward and at some point there are also decisions made over many years of perhaps adding programming without necessarily having the full scope of what it was gonna cost and doubling back again and so there's a lot of reasons for it but as I said before you know the beauty of this initiative is that we were able to be laser focused and I mean we have commissioners who sent staff to other agency staff and they're still there we're gonna continue to do that collaboration until we get through this and hopefully also figure out how do we have a procurement system where we have more standardization right to your point it's so complex and this agency has this problem this agency has this problem but we need to have a process going forward where 99% of what goes through just goes through to the controller lander's point in terms of asking vendors and not-for-profit partners and MDE vendors for a myriad of information for every single transaction they have with us it should be one relationship it doesn't matter to them if they have a contract with this agency and that agency it's still the city and so we have to really move forward and being more standard and so that the longer time period is really just for those items that actually deserved a longer time period and not just because we have this bureaucracy and that's it with the commission just stated we have been operating the city as every agency is a separate city you know people have to come to the city one agency give all this basic information then you go back to the next agency give all this basic information then you go to the third so we have been operating one city but separated per agency to be a separate city we're saying no to that we're all in this together one and some of the stuff we're going to be rolling out that is going to be one connection with the city agency and then we share the data the person should not have to go from agency to agency to share the data that's what the my city card is about within the next couple of months we're just gonna roll out some good stuff you know and this city can run better that's what we're gonna have an office of non-profit that's set up so they can go directly to someone Melanie LaRocca who's the first of his kind chief efficiency officer you have to see some of the stuff that we discovered that's gonna come out of the chief efficiency office it's unbelievable how the city was actually functioning in previous years and we're going after every area to have a more efficient city yep yep okay let me spare you guys huh where are you it'll be fun come on the people want to sit around get to see hold on bro they do some off-topic I'm not gonna leave until I talk to you okay let me let me let me finish with the with the media let's do a few off-topics the state health commissioner has now described multi-box the city health department has not used that and there are reports today that a senior epidemiologist has moved out of the office after a dispute about how seriously to treat multi-box what is your review on this and what is your message about how serious this is so we're gonna we're gonna deal with it in two levels first the first part I commend the governor in calling it a state of emergency so important is going to free up things that she she can do I think it's crucial to do so Dr. Fassan the deputy I mean the commissioner in charge of of our health department of health and mental hygiene he's still making a determination it will free up and allow me to do certain things that we do the same thing in the city and he's going to make that determination about the personnel that was transferred you know we don't talk about personnel policies and what we do with our personnel we do it in a fair way that is how we do it the same question about the asylum mission you know she reported that when Texas sends migrants to New York in recent days the federal government has given them some kind of an arbitrary address a social services office and that they've been going to buildings and facilities that don't have proper services and that even important documents like their next court hearing etc have been forwarded to those improper addresses so what Melissa wanted to know is are there new contacts with the Biden administration are you going to do something to try and streamline this and make sure first of all they're not sent to the wrong place and second of all that their important documents are not sent to the wrong place yeah this is the first time we've become aware of this and we're going to zero in on it we don't have any of the documents and I hope if someone has one we can actually see what's happening I was out yesterday at Befford in Atlantic shelter and it was pretty amazing to see how many of the men who were seeking assistance how many of them were from Venezuela was from other locations and I spoke with several of them you know these many had a problem with English and so there's some things we want to do on the ground but we are not aware of if they're doing that and we're going to look into it because it should not happen if it is Mr. Mayor, I wanted to ask about the school budget situation I know things are kind of in flux given the court situation I wanted to see where things stand within your negotiations now with council leadership and what's happening inside DOE right now as far as principals trying to understand what September is going to look like for them with all of this confusion well you know once something once we follow the judges the judge made determination nothing should happen should happen until they look over the documents that were filed and we're going to follow that you know and we're going to follow the judges ruling that we're going to exhaust everything we must do to make sure that we get the children with quality education and deal with the financial crisis we're facing so there's not much we can say now because now it's in the hands of the court and the corporation council made it clear that they don't want us talking on this topic wise in front of a judge well it's not good the council can't change anything now because the judge told everyone hit the pause button and we have to follow with the judge states how's it going yeah all of the vaccines that we have and all of the appointments are out we're continuing to send a clear message to Washington and to the state 90% of the cases are in New York City we were not receiving our proportionate share and the White House has attempted to correct that and as we get them in we're setting up appointments right away the website is up and operating we have a few glitches when outside is at the website we're now in control of it and it's up and operating as soon as we're able to put more appointments out there we're going to do so when we get the vaccines from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene or from the yes I am changing the bail laws how do you feel about the Republican nominee constantly talking about how you too are going to do this well listen when you look at the fact that Congressman Zeldin was one of the few congressmen that voted against the simple smart way of dealing with gun violence it's clear that we are not in a line with public safety that is why I endorse Governor Huckle and we have made it clear that she was an amazing partner for me when I left Albany during my first visit and no one wanted to deal with the public safety issue I reached out to the governor and she made it clear we had to make changes and I commended for that and that's why I endorsed her and clearly Leigh and I are not aligned on public safety he just refuses to deal with the over proliferation of guns he did not vote on the gun bill that passed through Congress a bipartisan of bill and so I'm clear that my choice for governor is Governor Huckle and I cannot be any more clearer than that and so to me in fact he's commending me that should give comfort to everyone who likes my endorsement and I made the right endorsement and so I hope he tells them to vote who I endorse that would be a good win another day about juveniles and looking at all of that and then carrying guns I wonder is that a suggestion to possibly have lawmakers look at raise the age legislation that passed a couple of years ago that changed the age of accountability and lowered it and why some of these teens are going on to family court is that something that you've been talking about with leadership at the state level is that something you want them to look back at what I'm saying to my state lawmakers let's do an analysis of the crimes that we're seeing particularly the violent crimes the gun crimes the robberies let's look at those and say to ourselves what happened back then and what happened now this is what we're going to find there's an increase in whose committing crimes of younger people and there's an increase on the victims of crime that are younger people so once we find out what's the problem is we need to go back and fix anything we did that caused the problems we're facing right now everything should be on the table that is what happens when you look you make a law if it has a negative impact of a dramatic proportion we need to reexamine that law we made and I've had conversations with my lawmakers around that I'll ask you I don't know if you've read the reporting this week by my colleagues in the city about Bishop Lamar Whitehead he's alleged by parishioner of stealing her life savings and I know he also owes money on some apartments he owns in Connecticut he hasn't paid the mortgage I wanted to ask if you've spoken to him this week since his incident on Sunday but also how would you describe your relationship I know in the past you've described him as a good friend and brother so I don't know if that's shifted at all and the Bishop lost his dad Arthur Miller was his name during a police incident and I have from the Glover family and other families I've always maintained a relationship with people who have gone through traumatic experiences and my goal is to mentor people who go through crisis and I have a list of so many I mean you guys have you have written about these relationships I have with people who are in dark places because I was in a dark place and I will continue to do that I checked in after the robbery the robbery we go through is normal investigation and bring the people who are guilty to justice but I'm focused on running the city Lamar and any other individual that I support I continue to try to mentor as a black man I have an obligation to mentor other black men and negative encounters in their lives and other people in general and that's what I will continue to do Mr. Mayor you met with or you spoke with Assembly Speaker Hasty how are you following up with him you said you wanted to give him statistics on the repeat felony offenders and also have you considered showing him what's going on in the precinct in his district in the 47 precinct and what crimes are occurring in that precinct give him the stats on the particularly the repeated offenders we're going to give him the stats and you know I have sort of a belief that those private conversations I don't go into but he's a very knowledgeable lawmaker he raised concern about public safety he's concerned about public safety just as I am you know we may have a philosophical disagreement on how to tweak the laws that are in place but he and I are both on the same page he's concerned about guns he's concerned about the national impact of guns and he has shared that and so I don't think he is not aware of what's happening in the Bronx and what's happening throughout the state and throughout the country as he shared he said this is a country a national problem that we have to address and Mr. Mayor another question on Bishop Whitehead if it turns out the allegations are substantiated in this court case what do you think you're going to say to him I mean does your kind of you know I heard what you said about wanting to mentor people but does that change in a way if it turns out that was substantiated no one is above the law we all have to follow the law we have to enforce in the law and I will continue to say to all New Yorkers friend and foes and allies and enemies that you have to follow the law and I think that we have a great system of determining if someone violated a law or a rule and that is up to the court to decide if there is a case in front of a judge the judge will make that decision is there a permanent investigation into that into those allegations yeah but is there a permanent investigation I'm not aware thank you