The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) may soon be required to publicly disclose information about all contracts it enters into under a bill introduced to Congress on Wednesday, according to a report.
Under current law, NYCHA is not required to publicly report information about contracts with private actors that fall into the small-dollar price category. However, a new bill authored by Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-NY, will require the agency to publicly disclose information about the contracts it enters into with private actors regardless of the amount, as first reported by the Daily News.
If passed, the bill would require disclosures on the date of the contract, information about the goods and services being procured, and the identities of the agency official and the vendor involved in the transaction.
"For five years, I have been sounding the alarm about NYCHA's chronic lack of oversight over no-bid contracting, which can easily become a breeding ground for fraud, corruption and abuse," Torres, who previously called for stricter transparency requirements around the NYCHA's contracts, told the publication.
"One case of bribery or a few cases of bribery can be explained away as outliers. But 70 cases of bribery, affecting one-third of NYCHA properties, points to a systemic failure of management and oversight. It points to a culture of corruption," he added.
In response, NYCHA spokeswoman Barbara Brancaccio argued that the agency has already made "substantial reforms" on how it procures contracts and said it also reduced micro-purchase spending on services by nearly 50%.
"While micro-purchases allow for staff to quickly and flexibly respond to emergencies at the development level, these recent and unfortunate events demonstrate that additional oversight is needed," Brancaccio continued.
NYCHA Bribery Scheme
The bill comes after 70 current and former NYCHA employees were charged with bribery and extortion for pocketing over $2 million in cash payments for no-bid repair contract. The scheme involved nearly a third of the agency's 335 public housing developments across the city of New York.
In unsealed court documents, NYCHA employees would allegedly demand between 10% and 20% of the contract value or between $500 and $2,000 from contractors. Some employees also allegedly demanded higher payments. In total, over $13 million in contracts were wrongfully handed out as part of the scheme.
As of Thursday, none of the contractors who paid out bribes to the NYCHA were charged as part of the bribery bust.
