Surprise, surprise. Mayor Bill de Blasio can’t keep his promises — not even to nonprofits working with the city’s most vulnerable. Talk about a Tale of Two New Yorks!
Eight months ago, The Post exposed the Department of Homeless Services as late in paying 87 percent of its nonprofit contracts. The mayor vowed to fix it — but his administration still can’t manage to pay these agencies on time.
“It is simply unacceptable,” a full 275 reps for charities wrote de Blasio. They say that more than 90 percent of their contracts don’t get OK’d until after the official start dates. The delays have left nearly one in five of our city’s nonprofit human services institutions to be “technically insolvent.”
“Please,” they ask, “make this a top priority of your remaining time in office” — as opposed to (they’re nice enough not to say) traveling the country to promote himself.
As Adam Weinstein, board chair of Phipps Neighborhoods, put it: “Waiting and waiting and waiting for millions of dollars was really intolerable. It just became too difficult to lend the government money.” His group is owed more than $3.2 million, mostly from the Department of Education, he said.
Overall, the city’s late paying more than half of all contracts. That can impose big costs as nonprofits borrow to cover their bills: The Chinese-American Planning Council shelled out $157,000 in interest on a loan it had to take out. Children’s charity Sheltering Arms lost $20,000 in interest.
Eight months ago, Mayor de Blasio said he didn’t “accept” this mess. How about actually fixing it?
