NYC Migrant Costs Soar With No-Bid Contacts

The costs of New York City’s illegal immigrant crisis continue to mount, as hastily written no-bid contracts result in massive overpayment for migrant services. A Comptroller’s office audit showed that the emergency contract process has resulted in much higher costs than hiring city workers.

New York’s “sanctuary city” status has led to a massive influx of illegal immigrants and an urgent need to meet their needs as required by the city’s laws. In 2022, the Mayor of New York City was granted emergency powers by the city Comptroller to bypass the normal competitive bidding process in hiring contractors to support migrants.

A subsequent Comptroller’s office audit focusing on several vendors hired by the city has come to some key conclusions. First, there are dramatically varying costs among different providers for the same services. Second, all the contracted vendors are significantly more expensive than hiring city workers to do equivalent jobs.

A migrant center site manager hired via the emergency services firm Sullivan Land Services Co (SLSCO) was making $1500 per day. The same position hired through the vendor DocGo was paid $2000 per day.

Back when competitive bidding was in place, the firm Essey paid only $550 per day for the same site manager position.

Security guards at migrant shelters cost $90 per hour through SLSCO and $50 per hour through DocGo. A New York City Department of Health peace officer makes only $29.80 per hour.

Additionally, a no-bid contract with Mobility Capital Finance (MoCaFi) will distribute $53 million dollars in pre-paid debit cards to illegals in a highly controversial program initiated by Democrat Mayor Eric Adams.

The audit report states: “The Comptroller’s Office estimates that certain staffing costs to provide services to asylum seekers at the Row Hotel were approximately 2.5 times higher under an emergency contract with SLSCO than if the city had delivered those same services with city employees.”

The report continued: “Vendors are supplying staff to perform comparable functions at wildly different rates from one another and, in addition, at rates that are significantly higher than the rates usually paid to existing New York City shelter vendors and, in most cases, higher than public sector civil servants.”

Once upon a time, the favorite rallying cry of liberals was the seemingly overinflated price tags of screws and toilet seats in military aircraft. But of late, Democrats are indeed dealing with a similar scandal connected to their sacred cause of mass immigration.

New York’s 1981 “right to shelter” law requires the city to provide same-day housing for the homeless, but it is functionally collapsing under the sheer numbers of illegals continuously arriving in the city.