Chair Lee questions MOIA on contract and payment delays for providers

And then let me just get back to Sanor.

For contract and payment delays, moving on a little bit, we know that there's, you guys are, you know, the legal services groups are dealing with an unprecedented attack on immigrants'rights.

And one of the biggest issues that providers expressed during our roundtable that we had was the extreme delays in getting paid by the city.

One provider explained that the city owes them $15 million, and they have now spent thousands of dollars on interest payments from private loans just to make payroll.

And this is a common sort of theme that we hear amongst our nonprofit providers.

And so just wondering how, Moya, if you can advocate for this administration to dedicate more funding to processing the contracts and talking to MOX,

ensuring that providers have timely access to invoicing and reimbursements.

I can start and then I'll turn it over to my colleague if she has anything more to add.

I mean, this is an area that you all know I care about.

very deeply about.

I did during my time at the council.

MOIA strongly supports continued investment in contract processing capacity and reforms to improve payment timelines for our providers.

We recognize that a lot of our immigrant-serving organizations are operating under significant financial pressure.

I think it's important for me to just kind of elevate that last session the council did enact major procurement reforms, including laws establishing advanced payments and quarterly invoicing and stronger accountability.

Those reforms were really an important step forward, but implementation across the agencies is something that's critical.

We're continuing to partner with our agencies and talking to MOX and providers to identify any operational bottlenecks and figure out ways to...

together, how do we improve that consistency and transparency?

And I will just add that, at least on the MOIA end, you know, we have a close partnership with both MOX and the Mayor's Office of Nonprofit Services, who are

a great resource for all nonprofits, especially folks that are new to, you know, the invoicing or contracting process over, you know, here in the city, right?

So we definitely, at least when things get elevated to us, we definitely work closely with providers.

To point them in the right direction.

Okay, great.

And I think you answered my question, Commissioner, already about, I think HR and DSS are probably some of the ones that we hear most about from the agencies.

And so whatever you guys can do to help push those contracts through would be, I think, immensely helpful.