Banks asks hypothetical 565-worker hire and 2013 backlog drop; Greene cites quality concerns

Let me ask you another question.

On January 2013, NYCHA had approximately 423,000 open work orders.

To address the backlog, NYCHA hired 565 additional employees and assigned them to repair work.

By January of 2014, the number of open work orders had reportedly fallen to approximately 106,000.

Although there were some reports that raised concerns that some of this reduction may have resulted from work orders being closed without repairs being completed,

the reported decline was still unsubstantial.

If NITRA was provided with sufficient resources to hire 565 workers today, could it reduce the current work order backlog to 200,000 open work orders within a year?

Thank you, Council Member, for that question.

I think that's all theoretical, which is fine sitting in this room here today.

But number one, one point that you made that was very important from your own report was there was a lot of concerns about the quality of that work.

One of the things that we've tried to change is not allowing staff to just close out tickets just to get the backlog down, just to look good in a press release to say that we got the backlog down.

We want to make sure that we're actually doing the work.

We're closing out more than 70% with labor for our repairs right now for the trades.

So we want to make sure the work is done and verified.

Just closing out tickets based on loose work order rules is not the way to get NYCHA better.

It just simply is not.

We have added trades where that is reasonable and where we have actually have funding to tie to it in a program.

The key one that we added is the MLR, 47 trades directed and managed by the Office of Mold Assessment and Remediation to address aging mold and leak workers over 100 days.

We've knocked down work orders at Whitman.

We've knocked down work orders at Ingersoll, Red Hook East.

Now we're working at Baruch, Wagner, Jefferson.

So we're using data to target those sites with our monitor, with the IMA.

So we have done those initiatives, but everything has to be scaled and reasonable.

And the city's been very generous in providing resources, not only for that program, but also now over time for CRI as well.

We know there was a drastic reduction.

between 2013 and 2014, sorry, from the 2013 and 2014 result,

at least in part from the underreporting or the premature closure of repairs requests.

Was that drastic reduction because of underreporting or the premature closure of repair requests?

Thank you, Chair, for that question.

I cannot speak to that because I didn't work at NYCHA back then.

I came in 2019 as the chief compliance officer, and the reason why I was hired at NYCHA was because of efforts to close out work orders without doing proper work.

And we've tried to change that.

And part of the way we've changed that is by strengthening the work order closure rules and by increasing how work orders get created, most notably through the apartment inspections, most notably through how we work on lead and mold tickets so they have to be created.

So, again, I would not want to get into a program where I'm only trying to produce the work order numbers so the numbers look better.

I'm here to address NYCHA as it stands with this $78 billion P&A.

Okay.