Councilmember Maloney questions Manhattan Youth non-renewal in Compass RFP

So we're going to move to council member questions.

Council member Maloney, followed by deputy speaker.

Thank you.

On behalf of countless parents and principals across my district, and you're going to be hearing from other districts in Manhattan, I have concerns about the new Compass RFP,

and in particular Manhattan Youth, which was discontinued at some schools, but not all schools, with limited transparency about why and limited engagement with the parents and the principals on the ground, to Councilmember

Stevens'point earlier.

This is a program that had a 94% attendance rate, positive audits, and was recommended first by many principals.

So the question is, why were they deemed insufficient?

And if their program truly was insufficient, then why were they awarded for some contracts and not others, including a case where there's a co-located school where Manhattan Youth was awarded for one school and not.

The other.

I want to say that, you know, I want to speak more broadly about the selection process, and I'm going to hand it over to Dana.

But I do want to talk about this in terms of transparency and the narratives that are out there.

This was a procurement process that was highly transparent.

The concept paper was co-developed by the field.

And in any procurement, there are winners and non-winners.

And my heart goes out to all of the agencies that were not awarded.

But I am really proud of the rigorous process that we engaged in and the level of care that DYCD took in making these awards.

I want to speak about that, but I also want to give you the technical answer, which I'm going to hand over to Dana.

And I also want to say that every single competition in every single region was competing with other providers.

And so they were ranked in that geographical area accordingly.

So there were some providers that in some areas they were rewarded, awarded their specific, they were re-awarded, and in other areas they were not.

And I can tell you on the provider side, that is, as someone who's been a provider, that is devastating, and yet it is part of the procurement process.

I think the thing I want to highlight, because this has not been procured for over 10 years, there is a sense of ownership that I think is really felt in terms of relationships.

in terms of continuity.

And yet what we know to be true is that procurement is necessary because it allows for innovation, for equity, and for accountability.

So I think more than one thing could be true about this process.

But again, I share the deep empathy and regard for the staff, for the families and the children, youth that are going to have a new provider.

But I'm also really excited about the providers that were selected that are high quality, high caliber, and that offer really great services.

Thank you, Commissioner.

To add, I definitely want to push back a little on the fact that the procurement wasn't transparent.

It was extremely transparent.

We had made selections based on a basis for award where there was criteria outlined on how we were making the awards.

In the case of Manhattan Youth, they did apply to multiple competitions, and each competition is handled on its own merit.

So you could have one school, which was considered a competition, be more competitive than others, and we made selections based on where scores, ranking, provided diversity.

There were many areas that we looked at when making those selections, but it stood behind the basis for award that was released in the RFP, and that was a procurement document that was made public.