City Hall officials said Tuesday that efforts to house asylum seekers would be slowed by Comptroller Brad Lander’s decision to restrict Mayor Eric Adams’ ability to ink emergency contracts.
Lander announced Monday in a letter sent to city agencies that his office would now need to pre-approve emergency procurement requests under many circumstances, changing what had been blanket approval.
On Tuesday, Mayor Adams criticized Lander, who just last week traveled to Washington D.C. – after months of the mayor faulting the comptroller for not demanding more support from the federal government.
“He went to D.C. 20 months later, and he came back with tying our hands,” Adams said. “That just sort of defies logic to me, that we have to make these quick decisions on dealing with these contracts and placing people in housing so I’m a little disappointed that when he returned from D.C. he didn’t come back with any real answers.”
Lisa Zornberg, the mayor’s chief counsel, said that Lander’s letter doesn’t really change much.
“What the comptroller put out does not do away with emergency procurements in the city of New York,” she said, while adding that “anything that slows us down is not a good thing.”
Lander’s office recently completed a review of 74 emergency contracts worth $1.38 billion intended to help handle the arrival of asylum seekers. The review found agencies had delayed submitting contracts and outlines for review and that they failed to report subcontractors they used.
“The idea that, you know, 20 months into the arrival of asylum seekers that they need unfettered ability to contract with no oversight strains credulity,” Lander told THE CITY on Tuesday. “New Yorkers know it’s not true.”
Billions in migrant-related emergency spending has sidestepped the traditional contracting process, with the comptroller only vetting those contracts once they were in effect.
That includes money that went to companies like DocGo, which Lander initially refused to sign off on. Adams later approved a $432 million contract with the company that rapidly shifted from COVID and medical support to a new business model involving shelters and that is now being investigated by State Attorney General Letitita James for allegedly misleading and mistreating migrants.
Contracts doled out by quasi-governmental agencies including the Economic Development Corporation and the city’s public hospital system are not subject to the comptroller’s oversight. Those include a $140 million security contract for migrant shelters and a $304 million contract for Medrite LLC, an urgent healthcare company now tasked with staffing shelters.
“We can’t grant blanket authority for whatever city hall wants to cram under that blanket approval,” Lander said. “They need to come on a contract-by-contract basis.”
Ghost Busses and Big Bills
The shift in how City Hall approves spending for asylum seekers comes as temperatures are expected to get even colder – and even more migrants are expected to arrive in New York City.
Over the past week, adult migrants seeking another 30 days in shelter have lined up for hours and sometimes days, at times sleeping outside in the cold, hoping to improve their chances of securing a cot.
Last week, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, promised to double down on his tactic of sending buses of migrants to New York and other cities run by Democrats. In the past week the city saw yet another uptick in new arrivals, City Hall officials said Tuesday, with 3,600 people arriving. Over the past year and a half, Texas says that it has bussed approximately 23,800 people to New York City, without any coordination with local officials here.
“We keep getting ghost buses in the middle of the night. We don’t know if it’s going to be families with children, or single adults. It doesn’t make any sense,” said Deputy Mayor Anne Williams-Isom at a Tuesday press conference. “We need the comptroller and everyone to stand us together to say we need the federal government to help us coordinate what is happening so we will be better able to serve people, especially as the cold weather is coming now. We need support. We don’t need people pointing fingers at us.”
Through Tuesday, a record 122,100 people were living in city shelters including 67,200 migrants, according to City Hall, an escalating fiscal conundrum that’s cost the city $1.45 billion. The Adams administration has said it intends to slash spending on migrants by 20% in the coming months as polls show most New Yorkers think the city is already providing too much support to these new arrivals.
Mayor Adams is headed back down to Washington D.C. on Thursday to try and speak with federal officials about sending more money to New York City for help with the asylum seekers. It’s a re-do for his Nov. 2 trip that was upended when he rushed back to New York after his top campaign fundraiser’s home was raided by the FBI.