The city is continuing to do business with DocGo, inking four new contracts with the controversial migrant service provider since late last year even as the company remains under fire over issues related to the local migrant crisis, according to a Daily News review of procurement records.
DocGo, which has so far received tens of millions of dollars to help house and provide services for newly arrived migrants, became the subject of a state attorney general’s probe last August after it was accused of lying to migrants, threatening them and wasting an inordinate amount of food.
On April 9, Adams administration officials said the city was winding down its relationship with DocGo, pointing in particular to a decision by the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development to not renew a $432 million contract the firm was awarded last year to staff emergency migrant housing facilities.
In a statement at the time, Camille Joseph Varlack, Mayor Adams’ chief of staff, said the move “will ultimately allow the city to save more money and will allow others, including non-profits and internationally recognized resettlement providers, to apply to do this critical work.”
But days before Varlack’s comments, the board of the city’s Health + Hospitals network had voted to enter into two new 12-month contracts with DocGo and several other providers worth as much as $403 million, records reviewed by The News show.
A third deal, this one for $40.9 million, between DocGo and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development was recently submitted for review by the city comptroller’s office.
Those previously unreported deals came on top of a $176.8 million 12-month contract H + H awarded DocGo and four providers in late December to perform migrant “case management” services.
The four contracts are jointly worth more than $620 million, and require DocGo and the partner providers to perform a variety of services, ranging from medical to custodial.
The three new H + H contracts, which make up the lion’s share of the new spending, don’t make clear how much of the money will go to DocGo versus the other providers, and hospital network officials said in a March 28 board meeting that’s determined by how much work each vendor performs.
DocGo’s latest earnings report says the company expects to generate between $320 million and $350 million in revenue this year from contracts with H + H and the Housing Preservation and Development agency.
In a statement to The News, a DocGo rep said the company considers itself an “ongoing partner” with “continuing” city contracts. H + H’s relationship with DocGo dates back to the COVID-19 pandemic, when it paid the company to help the city distribute vaccines.
DocGo, responding to allegations over the migrant contract, has said it’s cooperating in the AG investigation and operates in “compliance with applicable law.”
An Adams spokesman said Wednesday the new DocGo deals don’t suggest “a departure from our policy shift made public in early April that the city will not be renewing a separate $432 million contract with DocGo.”
One of the two most recent contracts pertain to “site administration staffing services” at the city’s Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Centers, mega shelters overseen by the hospital system that house tens of thousands of migrants. That contract is worth $192 million, and Chris Keeley, an assistant H + H vice president, said during the March board meeting that DocGo and three other partner providers were picked for it out of a pool of 18 bidders.
The other most recent contract is worth as much as $211.3 million, and involves DocGo and three other providers who will provide medical services for migrants. DocGo and the others were picked for that deal out of a pool of 21 bidders, Keeley said.
Both of those contracts, which were approved by the H + H board at the March meeting, can be extended for another year on top of the 12-month terms at the discretion of the hospital network.
Manhattan Councilwoman Gale Brewer, a Democrat who chairs the Council’s Oversight Committee, said she doesn’t understand why the city would continue working with DocGo, especially given Varlack’s April statement about switching to nonprofit procurement models.
“I am very surprised that out of 18 proposals in one case and 21 proposals in the other case that there weren’t both less expensive and higher quality candidates than DocGo,” Brewer said, noting she has long voiced concern about the quality of DocGo’s food and case management services. “To me, this is a company that hasn’t performed very well so why are we rewarding them? They have shown us that they should not be rewarded. I am pretty surprised by all this to put it mildly.”
The third contract totaling $40.9 million between DocGo and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development was sent to City Comptroller Brad Lander’s office for approval on April 22, a memo obtained by The News shows.
That emergency, no-bid contract is for managing a migrant shelter in Long Island City, Queens and specifically involves incidental transportation, food, laundry and translation work services.
A source with direct knowledge of the matter noted the contract was originally sent to Lander’s office for approval on March 18, but it was returned to HPD due to incomplete paperwork. The hospital system sent the updated paperwork on April 22.
According to Lander’s office, which serves as the city’s fiscal watchdog, the contract began several months earlier in September 2023, though.
Under city procurement rules, the administration is required to give the comptroller notice of an emergency contract within 15 days of it being entered into. In this case, notice of the emergency contract didn’t come to Lander until several months after the fact.
Lander spokeswoman Chloe Chik said her boss has “no intention” of allowing the contract to be renewed once its term expires in September “because of DocGo’s track record of shoddy service to asylum seekers in their care.” She also slammed HPD’s “incredibly delayed” submission of the contract.
The Law Department, which is also required to approve such contracts, signed off on the HPD contract just this past Monday, documents obtained by The News show.
Adams spokesman William Fowler said DocGo was running the Queens shelter site “at risk of not being paid” prior to a contract being ironed out and that the deal is, in part, to pay for services “retroactively.”
He added that once the contract’s term expires in September, the migrant shelter will “transition out of DocGo’s hands” and that the city’s planning to put out a request for bids and will select a contractor based on those submissions.
