Category: Government Operations

NGLCC: New York City to Become Largest City in America   to Recognize LGBT-Owned Businesses

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New York City to Become Largest City in America
to Recognize LGBT-Owned Businesses

Historic agreement between NYC Dept. of Small Business Services
and National LGBT Chamber of Commerce, five years in the making


January 19, 2021
Washington, D.C. – The National LGBT Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC), the business voice of the LGBT community, is proud to announce that New York City Small Business Services (SBS) has approved a measure to include NGLCC Certified LGBT Business Enterprise® (Certified LGBTBE®) suppliers in contracting and procurement opportunities, as well as capacity building and educational programs from small businesses, throughout the city. For LGBT citizens of New York City, this inclusive policy provides fair and equal access to economic development programs that drive innovation, create jobs, and promote economic growth throughout the city.
“Thanks to the leadership of NGLCC, Mayor Bill de Blasio and the NYC Department of Small Business Services– especially Commissioner Jonnel Doris and Deputy Commissioner Dynishal Gross– LGBT entrepreneurs in New York City will now have the opportunity to create jobs and develop innovations that benefit all who live there. New York City has a legacy of leadership in promoting inclusivity at every level of public life. Now, history has been made here in New York City, and this victory for inclusivity has once again proved our core values that ‘diversity is good for business’ and that ‘if you can buy it, a certified LGBT-owned business can supply it.’ We are excited to see LGBTBEs in every field, from construction to catering and everything in between, help grow the economy of New York City and beyond as M/WBEs and EBEs,” said NGLCC Co-Founder & President Justin Nelson.
New and Current NGLCC Certified LGBTBE® suppliers can utilize their existing certification to meet a majority of criteria needed to be certified by NYC’s Department of Small Business Services (SBS). The additional information required will be submitted via electronic addendum provided when a supplier begins the online application with the City of New York. Learn more at nglcc.org/nyc. 
“Equity of access and inclusion are at the core of the work we do at SBS,” said Jonnel Doris, Commissioner of the NYC Department of Small Business Services. “A diverse vendor pool makes a stronger New York City, and we are excited to maximize the inclusion of LGBTQ certified firms into the City’s certification process. We look forward to our continued partnership with the NGLCC.”
This policy makes New York City the next city to intentionally include LGBT-owned businesses in municipal contracting and procurement opportunities, a best practice of the private sector and of an ever-growing number of states and municipalities. Thanks to the advocacy of NGLCC and its state and local affiliate chambers, New York City follows in the footsteps of large cities like Chicago, Orlando, Nashville, and more as inclusive leaders throughout the United States. 
NGLCC wishes to thank Congressman Ritchie Torres for introducing a New York City Council bill to push this issue forward, which was first raised by Councilmember Daniel Dromm and members of the LGBTQ Caucus.
“LGBTQ-owned businesses in NYC will finally have equal access to city economic development programs thanks to this historic agreement,” said NYC Council LGBT Caucus Chair Daniel Dromm. “When it comes to establishing and growing businesses, LGBTQ entrepreneurs face many significant and manifold challenges. I am pleased that these business owners who were once excluded from sorely-needed contracting and procurement opportunities will be able to participate. I have worked alongside Congressmember Ritchie Torres and the NGLCC to sounds the alarm and raise awareness of this effort which is ultimately about fairness and equity. Thank you to SBS for stepping up and agreeing to this partnership. It will impact the lives of thousands of New Yorkers in a meaningful and lasting way.”
In August 2019, at the 2019 NGLCC International Business & Leadership Conference in Tampa, FL, openly LGBT Mayor Jane Castor announced an executive order to include Certified LGBTBE® suppliers in her city. This order followed Mayor Eric Garcetti’s historic announcement to do the same in Los Angeles just days before, as well as Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s resolution to do the same in her city. In 2018 and early 2019, NGLCC won the inclusion of Certified LGBTBE® suppliers in Orlando, FL; Nashville, TN; Baltimore, MD; Jersey City, NJ; and Hoboken, NJ, while also advancing statewide bills in New York and New Jersey. Currently, California, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania also include Certified LGBTBE® suppliers in city procurement, along with major cities like Seattle, Newark, Columbus, and Philadelphia. Many of America’s largest cities and states are working closely with NGLCC to complete LGBTBE inclusion in 2021. 
“While we have a long way to go for LGBT equality in the nation, NYC has always had a strong and growing network of NGLCC Certified LGBTBE® suppliers and LGBT-owned companies. We hope this resolution in NYC will encourage more cities to proactively include the LGBT community for the optimum social and economic health of their cities. Collectively, LGBT-owned businesses contribute to the $1.7 trillion dollars that the LGBT business community puts into the national economy. Progressive and inclusive leadership, like that of New York City, will ensure greater access to the American Dream for every American,” said NGLCC Co-Founder & CEO Chance Mitchell.

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QNS.com: Dromm/NYC Council extend gas pipeline inspection & certification deadline

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Typical construction industry installation of utilities in a house

By Bill Parry

Originally published in QNS.com on December 24, 2020.

Queens homeowners will save thousands of dollars under legislation recently passed by the City Council and first introduced by Councilman Daniel Dromm.

The bill will extend the gas line inspection and certification deadline set by Local Law 152 of 2016 to June 30, 2021, and give a much-needed reprieve to thousands of Queens property owners in Community Districts 1, 3 and 10 which are still reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Intro 2151-B will also require the city’s Department of Buildings to conduct thorough outreach to the public, and solicit public comments related to Local Law 152.

“Intro 2151-B spares thousands of Queens homeowners from having to scramble to comply with Local Law 152, with its looming Dec. 31, 2020, deadline,” Dromm said. “It would be difficult to expect our constituents to bring inspectors into their homes in the middle of a pandemic or face thousands of dollars in fines.”

The goals of Local Law 152 are laudable: to ensure that gas lines in buildings throughout the city are sound. However, the initial deadline, set well before anyone could foresee the pandemic, is not practicable at this point.

“As a responsible policymaker, I am simply interested in ensuring compliance with any legislation that is passed and enacted. When circumstances change and call for reassessment, we have to respond,” Dromm said. “I want to thank NYC Council Housing and Buildings Chair Robert Cornegy for working alongside me on this important effort. I also want to thank my constituents for bringing this issue to my attention. You initiated the legislative process that culminated in [this] vote. Even during this challenging time, democracy is alive and well at the NYC Council.”

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Gotham Gazette: Immense Change for City Agency Tasked with Bulk of Coronavirus Response Spending, Government Workforce Shift

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Mayor de Blasio checking in on emergency efforts (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor’s Office)

By Ethan Geringer-Sameth

Originally published by the Gotham Gazette on May 21, 2020.

More than two months after New York officials raised alarms that the state could run out of life-saving equipment, from ventilators to rubber gloves, New York City is one purchase order away from having a 90-day worst-case-scenario stockpile of medical equipment, officials said Wednesday.

New York City Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) Commissioner Lisette Camilo told lawmakers the purchase order for ventilators was “in flight” at a City Council hearing on the agency’s budget, held by videoconference Wednesday as part of the Council’s examination of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s $89 billion executive budget plan for next fiscal year and changes to the current year’s spending.

The purchase comes as part of a $1.4 billion funding increase from the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), which more than doubled DCAS’ current budget, and eclipses the $1.3 billion earmarked for DCAS in de Blasio’s executive budget for fiscal year 2021. De Blasio and the Council must come to a budget agreement by the July 1 start of the new fiscal year.

The agency’s budget reflects the bulk of the city’s coronavirus spending, accounting for almost two-thirds of what is already well over $1 billion, on everything from ventilators to electricity. DCAS is responsible for supporting the entire city government’s administrative needs, from supplying PPE to the vehicle fleet to office space to personnel matters. While the agency has already committed hundreds of millions of dollars in COVID-related expenses — virtually all of which will likely be reimbursed by emergency federal aid — the pandemic leaves several points of uncertainty for DCAS’ budget, including future emergency spending, several ongoing projects, and the administrative infrastructure it maintains.

“In the midst of the current COVID-19 pandemic, our agency has played a critical role in supporting the continuity of government operations, as well as directly supporting the city’s COVID-19 response efforts,” Camilo told the Council members who participated in the hearing, which was chaired by Queens Council Member Daniel Dromm, the finance chair, and Bronx Council Member Fernando Cabrera, chair of the governmental operations committee.

“This crisis situation has affirmed the importance of our agency’s work because DCAS is here to support every other agency and the services each provides,” she said.

As of April 27, DCAS had purchased $800 million worth of medical supplies including ventilators, PPE, and cleaning supplies for city agencies including the health department and the city’s public hospitals, according to City Council budget documents. DCAS custodians have been sanitizing government buildings that have remained open. And as most of the city workforce has moved to remote work, DCAS has been responsible for handling personnel issues related to time off across city agencies.

The $1.3 billion for DCAS in de Blasio’s executive budget is a slight increase over its allocation in the FY2020 adopted budget, $1.28 billion, but dwarfed by the actual spending this fiscal year because of the pandemic, which more than doubled to $2.7 billion in a matter of months, according to a City Council analysis.

When asked by Dromm how much more the agency thinks it may need for COVID supplies in fiscal year 2021, Camilo said the administration is still undertaking that analysis: “We are working together in [the Office of Management and Budget] and our partners at other agencies to determine what longer-term needs will be. So that work is currently underway and we don’t yet have an estimate.”

“I think it depends on a number of different things,” she added. “Certainly, any federal stimulus funds will have to be resettled. It depends on whether or not there is a resurgence [of COVID-19]. There are a lot of variables that come into play but we are certainly working together to try and develop estimates for the next fiscal year.”

With the city facing upwards of an estimated $8.7 billion budget hole over the current and upcoming fiscal years, officials are looking for savings virtually across the board. DCAS, with its huge portfolio of contracted goods, services, and real estate, is appetizing territory to hunt for efficiencies.

The department’s adjusted and proposed budgets for the current and next fiscal years include $23 million in savings, largely due to the pandemic, of which only $6.6 million occurs in the upcoming fiscal year, with the rest in the current fiscal year, according to the Council’s analysis. The department believes it will save $6.8 million in the current fiscal year “primarily attributable to project delays due to facility access restrictions during COVID-19” and another $1.3 million next fiscal year from auctioning off part of the city’s vehicle fleet, Camilo said. She said DCAS officials are still in the process of finding savings, especially related to the outbreak, for Fiscal Year 2021.

Many of the savings come from projects that have been put on hold because of the state’s New York on PAUSE order, including several environmental initiatives like installing solar panels and retrofitting buildings to be greener.

“Generally through this pause I think we will see savings in a lot of categories,” Camilo said. “Certainly the heat, light, and power budget, certainly possibly certain fleet exercises, certain commodities that probably went down because of the work from home orders. Since agencies have a lot of their workforce working from home you might have an impact on some of the procurement budgets. It’s too soon to tell or quantify that number but we do expect some savings once the books get closed overall.”

A number of the most drastic changes that could be made to government life in the wake of the pandemic, like the use of city vehicles, office equipment, and even the offices themselves, fall under DCAS’ purview, the lawmakers pointed out.

The largest portion of DCAS spending is on heat, light, and power in government buildings, which accounts for $714 million in the mayor’s proposed budget. Several lawmakers questioned whether DCAS has considered scaling back its use of buildings in the wake of the pandemic to save money.

Allowing more telecommuting going forward “would be a tool for social distancing to be able to have more space in our workplace,” Camilo said. “I don’t think that there is a cost savings with regard to working from home right now.”

“But in the long run it would, right, because all those that do administrative work, they can do it from home,” asked Cabrera, adding: “real estate is expensive out there.”

“It is certainly a possibility but if you recall a lot of our workforce are on location doing things that can’t be done from home,” Camilo responded.

The DCAS budget actually includes $24.9 million more in lease payments over Fiscal Years 2021 and 2022 than in the adopted FY2020 budget, according to City Council documents. When asked whether DCAS was assessing the need for leased space for non-field administrative staff, and what the costs of breaking a lease might be, Camilo said the agency was having some high level internal conversations about leasing but that the agency was looking at more, smaller-scale changes.

“Part of our discussions is to identify many of options that we would need to explore further, and that is certainly on the extreme end that will have costs, that will have complications in planning and all the other cascading effects that we have to explore and study,” she said.

“But it’s something that I think has to be considered in addition to all the things that might not be as invasive,” she added.

Read more here.