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H+H, Health Department say city comptroller’s contract spending report undercounted real totals

BY SHUAN SIM

The city’s health authorities are pushing back against Comptroller Scott Stringer’s “Making the Grade” report on Covid-19-related contracting with minority- and women-owned business enterprises in scal 2021, claiming it undercounted their actual e orts.

NYC Health + Hospitals, the city’s public health system, was reported to have spent $105 million during the scal year, of which none went to MWBEs. Other entities recorded as not having worked with diverse and women vendors during that period were the Financial Information Services Agency and the departments of Parks and Recreation, Consumer A airs, Small Business Services and Consumer and Worker Protection. e city’s overall performance was given a C- grade in scal 2021, which ended June 30, down from a C the previous scal year.

Keith Tallbe, senior counsel and leader of the health system’s vendor diversity program, said Stringer’s calculation of the health system’s Covid-related spending was o . Because NYC Health + Hospitals is a public bene t corporation and not a city agency, he said, its revenue and expenses do not go through the comptroller’s nancial system.

Such expenses are recorded by Stringer’s o ce only for capital projects where the funding source is from the city, Tallbe said. e $105 million recorded in the comptroller’s report was for the Covid Centers of Excellence and does not capture spending on personal protective equipment and medical

supplies, for which MWBEs had been tapped as vendors, he said.

Health + Hospitals’ Covid-related MWBE spending for scal 2021 was $267 million, of which $223 million went to city-certi ed diverse businesses, said Danielle DiBari, senior vice president of business operations and chief pharmacy o cer. Covid-related MWBE spending as a proportion of total pandemic contracts is not yet available, she noted. MWBE-awarded contracts, however, totaled $419 million that scal year—a 13% increase from the previous year and representing 28% utilization of such vendors, she added.

For emergency procurements during the pandemic, city agencies and authorities were actually exempt from the usual MWBE requirements because of the need to buy supplies quickly, Tallbe said.

“However, we didn’t do that,” he said. “Every contract opportunity where an MWBE could be considered, we did that.” A spokeswoman from the comptroller’s o ce said the data in the report includes all spending captured in the city’s nancial management system. When asked for comment on the health system’s reporting of its contracting, the spokeswoman said: “We welcome further discussion about their MWBE spending and encourage H+H to accurately and transparently report its spending so that New Yorkers can assess how their public hospital system chooses to spend its multibillion-dollar budget.”

In response, DiBari said the health system is transparent on its MWBE strategies, operation infrastructure and implementation plans.

“For the comptroller to get to a better place in reporting this out, there needs to be better communication,” DiBari said. “I did not get reached out to for this report, and I'm not sure if anyone got reached out to either. We’re happy to partner with them as we’re proud of our numbers.”

When it comes to the city’s Health Department, the comptroller reported that it had allotted a fairly robust share of contracts to MWBEs, compared to other city agencies. Of its $379 million in Covid-related contracts, $159 million, or 42%, was awarded to diverse vendors. e Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s overall grade, however, fell to C for scal 2021 from B the previous year.

“ ough we respect the comptroller’s work, the grade is calculated based on payments and not on registered contracts, thus [it] is an undercount,” a Health Department spokeswoman said.

“EVERY OPPORTUNITY WHERE AN MWBE COULD BE CONSIDERED, WE DID THAT”

Health equity

Local stakeholders stressed the importance of supporting MWBEs during the Covid era. “It was di cult for small businesses even before the pandemic, and it has only gotten more di cult during,” said Gretchen Susi, deputy director of Brooklyn Communities Collaborative, a nonpro t with an enterprise initiative to help MWBEs contract with Brooklyn hospitals.

With people of color disproportionately a ected by the pandemic, supporting MWBEs—which tend to stem from such communities—is a form of health equity, Stringer said in the report. Susi agreed, saying that when local businesses in diverse neighborhoods are excluded from major economic opportunities by large institutions, especially hospitals that rely on neighborhood ties and trust, it sets the community up for worse outcomes when a pandemic hits.

“Lifting up MWBEs becomes more than just about the money,” Susi said. “It’s about building civic infrastructure.” ■

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