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City Eager to See Cuomo Sign M/WBE Contracting Bill Now on His Desk


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Gov. Cuomo signing (photo: Philip Kamrass/ Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo)


A state bill to enhance New York City’s ability to award discretionary contracts to minority- and women-owned businesses (M/WBEs), which was passed by both houses of the state Legislature in June, was delivered to Governor Andrew Cuomo’s desk on December 19.

The bill, which received unanimous support in the state Senate and passed the Assembly with a vote of 115-15, would allow the city to spend up to $150,000 on M/WBE contracts for small projects, without requiring a competitive bidding process that can be costly and time-consuming for applicants, often hindering M/WBEs, which tend to be smaller. Currently, the city is only allowed to give out discretionary contracts worth a maximum of $20,000 to small businesses and M/WBEs, while the state has a threshold of $200,000 for its government contracting.

The legislation also lets the city consider a firm’s status as an M/WBE in “best value procurement,” which involves assessing factors other than the price of a contract bid. For instance, it prioritizes firms with a good history of complying with labor laws and a positive record of worker health and safety.  

“The governor and the state have shown a desire to have a robust M/WBE program,” said Jonnel Doris, director of the Mayor’s Office Of M/WBEs, in a phone interview. “The state has tools in their toolbelt that they’re using to advance the M/WBE program and the city does not have those same tools.”

The governor has 10 days (excluding Sundays) to sign or veto it from when the bill was sent to him -- making for a deadline of midnight on Saturday, December 30. If he does not take any action, the bill automatically becomes law. A spokesperson for the governor’s office said the bill is under review.

The bill would help the city get parity with the state, Doris explained. “We know it’s a transformative bill for us,” he said, noting that the city spent $109 million in fiscal year 2016 on contracts under the $20,000 discretionary threshold. Had the threshold been $150,000, Doris said, the value of contracts in that same period would’ve been $257 million. “That’s a 140 percent increase in opportunities that could’ve gone to M/WBEs, so again, it’s transformative and it’s real, and the M/WBE community has been asking for this change.”

In September 2016, after significant pressure and criticism, Mayor Bill de Blasio committed to increasing the city’s contract awards to M/WBEs to at least 30 percent of all city contract dollars by 2021. Just one month later, Comptroller Scott Stringer provided another in a string of criticisms of the administration on this issue, giving it a “D+” grade on its record with M/WBEs, noting that the city spent only 4.8 percent of it’s $15.3 billion contract budget on M/WBEs.

The administration later pushed back against Stringer’s report, insisting that he should have evaluated the number of contracts awarded to M/WBEs rather than making a comparison with the total contract dollars paid out in a year, which includes payments for contracts awarded by the previous administration. The administration insists that the city is on track to meet its goal in 2021. According to Raul Contreras, a spokesperson for the Mayor’s Office of M/WBEs, the city spent $1 billion with M/WBEs in fiscal year 2017, or about 11.4 percent of city contract dollars awarded in the year ending June 30.

Although the state bill had failed in the state Legislature before, Doris is optimistic that this year’s overwhelming votes will ensure that Cuomo will sign the bill into law.

“The M/WBE program is an economic development program, it’s a jobs program, it’s a community improvement and advancement program,” Doris said. “That’s what it truly is, because when you bring business opportunities to communities, the communities thrive.”

State Senator Marisol Alcantara, a member of the Independent Democratic Conference from Manhattan, sponsored the bill in the Senate. "My team is still in conversation with the Governor's team about the bill, and are urging him to sign it,” said Alcantara, in a statement to Gotham Gazette. Assemblymember Alicia Hyndman, a Queens Democrat, sponsored the companion legislation in the other chamber. “By raising the limit on discretionary contracts from $20,000 to $150,000, the state can give M/WBE's the tools to effectively compete for contracts that were historically denied to them and transform the lives of hundreds of small business owners,” Alcantara said.

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by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

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Max & Murphy Podcast: City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito


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Ben Max, left, of Gotham Gazette, and Jarrett Murphy, right, of City Limits


December 20, 2017 - Max & Murphy: City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito (photo by William Alatriste/City Council)

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Melissa Mark-Viverito, the City Council Speaker for about 10 more days, joined the podcast to discuss her tenure, how she has approached leading the city's legislative body, and what she hopes the next speaker will do. She answered questions from Max, Murphy, and Gotham Gazette's Samar Khurshid about her approach to balancing work with advocates, negotiating with the mayoral administration, leading 50 other Council members, and moving a progressive agenda. Mark-Viverito explains what she sees as her legacy and jokes that she is relieved she didn't really have the option to run for mayor this year, given her closeness with Mayor de Blasio and how past speakers have faired in their mayoral pursuits.

Listen to the full conversation and let us know what you think -- we're on Twitter @TweetBenMax and @jarrettmurphy and @samarkhurshid and guest @MMViverito. You can listen to the episode through the embedded audio below or download the episode wherever you get your podcasts.

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by Ben Max, Gotham Gazette
     

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Rules Reform Package Supported by 33 Current and Incoming City Council Members


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City Council chambers (photo: Sofie Hecht/Gotham Gazette)


A majority of the incoming class of the New York City Council, including newly elected and returning members, has signed on to a newly-released package of internal rules reforms for the next four-year session, which begins in January. The agenda is intended to improve the Council’s budgeting and legislative drafting processes, strengthen the role of committees, bolster internal budgets, and enhance workplace conditions for Council staff, among other measures.

Of the 51-member legislative body, 33 members have expressed support for the reforms, which would have to be first heard through the Committee on Rules, Privileges and Elections before being incorporated into a rules resolution to be adopted by the full Council, which will elect a new speaker at its first meeting, on January 3. The members, in a draft document released Tuesday, called on the next speaker to support the reforms and ensure their passage by March, and not later than June.

Seven of the eight speaker candidates back the proposals, including Council Members Robert Cornegy, Mark Levine, Corey Johnson, Jumaane Williams, Ydanis Rodriguez, Jimmy Van Bramer, and Donovan Richards. Council Member Ritchie Torres was the only speaker candidate not to signal support. “The [Council Member] is still considering and deliberating each proposed reform, and their potential impact, before making a decision to sign on,” explained Raymond Rodriguez, a spokesperson for Torres, in a text message.

The proposals included in the package deal broadly with the Council internal culture and processes, seeking to further empower members and provide more transparency and representation in internal decision making. While they are inwardly focused, the reforms could have significant impact on how the Council operates and the work it does on behalf of New Yorkers.

Although the current Council instituted new rules in 2014 that created an independent bill drafting unit for members, legislation continues to be delayed in the drafting process with “first-in-time” bill requests delaying subsequent ones. It is a particularly frustrating issue for members that bills often get stuck in the "legislative services blackhole," said Council Member Brad Lander, chair of the rules committee, insisting it was not meant that way by design. "Things have evolved over time in a way that has become problematic," he said. The new proposals call for bolstering drafting capacity, setting new rules for drafting requests by prohibiting indefinite delays and creating formalized rules for “first-in-time” requests. 

The reforms also propose seeking more input from members on the Council’s policy priorities and for the speaker’s annual State of the City address, which current and outgoing Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito has often used as an avenue to announce sweeping policy proposals. 

The Council’s Committee on Oversight and Investigations has been called to action over the last four years to scrutinize Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration and for high-profile failures of city agencies such as the Administration for Children Services and the Department of Citywide Administrative Services. But, the committee did not exercise its subpoena power in any of those cases. The new proposals call for strengthening the oversight committee “with dedicated investigative staff and a willingness to use the Council’s subpoena power when necessary,” to conduct more regular oversight of city agencies.

The proposals also emphasize improvements in appointment of members to the 40-plus committees and subcommittees, and reforming how the Council’s committees function, including giving committee chairs more discretion in hiring committee staff.

The scheduling of committee hearings would also be reformed to ensure more regularly scheduled hearings, adequate disability and language access, and automatically triggering a hearing for a bill with strong support. They would also require committees to publish summaries of testimony from hearings, including the promises made by the administration and requests made by Council members.

"Over the past term, we have made the Council a dramatically more accountable, fair, and democratic body by bringing fairness to discretionary funding, eliminating lulus and outside income, expanding participatory budgeting, and significantly increasing transparency,” Lander said, in a statement accompanying the release. “The new proposals will take us even further.”

The package also deals with the Council’s internal budget, and the process by which members negotiate the city’s now-$86 billion budget with the administration. It calls for expanded Council support for participatory budgeting and community engagement, and increased capital funding given to each member for their districts. It also exhorts the next speaker to ensure that the Council’s budget negotiating team is fully representative of the Council’s composition, with borough and caucus representation and a few rotating seats to allow members to experience the process. “Council Members who chair committees that oversee 10% or more of the budget should automatically be on BNT,” the document states.  

The 33 council members also appeal for an increase in the Council’s budget, bringing it to the same level as the Comptroller’s office, offering salaries to staff in parity with similar positions at city agencies and training and educational scholarships for staff.

The package also proposes reinforcing the prominent and powerful land use division, which is tasked with evaluating and approving land use applications across the city. The reforms seek to provide urban planners and attorneys to assist Council members navigating related issues and also propose allowing individual members and groups on the Council to sponsor land use applications themselves.

Finally, the reforms also advance quality-of-life improvements at City Hall, including sliding scale child care for members and improvements in air and noise quality. A minor proposal also calls for filling gaps in cell-phone and wireless internet service.

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by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

Read more by this writer.

Note - this article has been updated with additional comment from Council Member Brad Lander. 



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