In 2023, New York City signed a $30 million contract with the Texas-based “disaster response” company Garner Environmental Services as part of its emergency effort to house thousands of asylum seekers. Three years later, the city has overspent that deal 25 times over, paying Garner more than $750 million.

Exactly what that money went toward, however, is unknown to the public. A contracting method called a master agreement allowed the city to vastly overshoot its target and let the city’s Department of Citywide Administrative Services disclose little about the goods and services purchased with taxpayer dollars.

Master agreements, which made up 17 percent of the city’s total contract spending over the last four years, are used by city agencies when they expect some future need for goods and services but do not know exactly how much or how often they will have to buy them.

As Mayor Zohran Mamdani scours the city’s $127 billion budget for potential savings, the comptroller says City Hall should also take a closer look at past overspent master agreements to find cost drivers and opportunities to negotiate better rates.

Keep reading in New York Focus

Keep reading in New York Focus

Keep reading in New York Focus

Keep reading in New York Focus