Following a brutal assessment by New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, which exposed important governmental incompetence and a lack of supervision in a$ 432 million contract to provide services to just arrived immigrants, the Adams leadership is under fire. Millions of dollars in wasted taxpayer funds were discovered in the no-bid deal with DocGo, a personal health services company, in a report from Center Square, which sparked controversy and criticism as the city battles an ongoing migratory problems.
A “wide range of fiscal mismanagement and shoddy oversight” were the causes of the contract, which was managed by the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development and expired in May. The key findings include the overpayment of security contractors by$ 2 million, the overuse of nearly$ 400,000 in hotel rooms, and the failure to provide the migrants ‘ promised social and casework services.
Comptroller Lander, who is expected to challenge Mayor Eric Adams in next year’s Democratic mayoral primary, criticized the administration’s handling of the contract. Our audit revealed that the City’s haphazard management ended up spending millions of taxpayer dollars on DocGo, according to Lander in a statement.” My office repeatedly sounded the alarm about the Adams Administration’s rush to contract with DocGo. Every error reveals that the Administration has not properly evaluated or managed the work of the company.
This audit follows an earlier report from Lander’s office highlighting deficiencies in the Adams administration’s emergency contracting practices, which had reached$ 54 million by the end of November. Concerns about potential overpayment and corruption were raised in the previous report as a result of the lack of transparency in the emergency contracting process.
In response to the audit, Adams ‘ chief of staff, Camille Joseph Varlack, defended the administration’s actions during what she described as a chaotic time when the city faced an unprecedented influx of asylum seekers traveling on buses from Texas and other border states. In response to what she called hotel owner price gouging, Vanlack emphasized that the administration put a premium on keeping families and children off the streets by bargaining a flat rate of$ 170 per night for migrant housing.
” We had to make sure that everyone had a place to stay.” During a Tuesday briefing, Varlack stated,” I think that we have demonstrated that we have been able to do that.” We had to ensure that the hotel could accommodate the visitors. And we had to ensure that the city’s price was fixed.
Varlack also pointed out that the Adams administration has already implemented many of the changes suggested in a prior audit, which suggested DocGo was “ill-prepared” to handle the volume of asylum seekers who require housing and other assistance.
Letitia James, the attorney general of New York, has opened an investigation into allegations that DocGo lied to and threatened to defraud immigrants while failing to properly vet security personnel. The Adams administration’s handling of the migrant crisis is being increasingly scrutinized as more evidence is being made.
Mayor Adams, responding to the criticism, suggested that it is easy for Lander and others to criticize from the sidelines. ” It is very comfortable to sit in the bleachers and, you know, just be a detached spectator”, Adams said during the Tuesday briefing. ” But when you are running a city as complex as this, you have to be prepared”.
Over 210, 000 asylum seekers have flooded New York City in the past year as a result of a historic increase in immigration along the U.S.-Mexico border. The city is currently providing housing, food, and other necessities for more than 60, 000 migrants across 200 temporary “humanitarian” shelters. Because the crisis is in its infancy and shows no signs of waning, according to Mayor Adams, the city will need to spend$ 12 billion on migrant services through 2025.
