Health Department Forms Folder 0038, 2000-2001

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

Telephone (212) 669-2797 Facsimile (212) 669-3069

THE CITY OF NEW YORK OFFICE OF THE COMPTROLLER 1 CENTRE STREET NEW YORK, N.Y. 10007-2341 John Graham Director, ALAN G. HEVESI COMPTROLLER Office of Contract Administration

August 31, 2000

Claude Millman Director Mayor's Office of Contracts 253 Broadway New York, N.Y. 10007

Dear Mr. Millman:

I am writing in response to your August 25, 2000 letter to Comptroller Hevesi.

First, however, let me address the divisive and inaccurate comments set forth in your letter of August 25th. In an effort to shift any responsibility from your own office, you endeavor to suggest that human service contracting delays are caused by everyone and everything else in the City but the Mayor's Office of Contracts (MOC). Additionally, in the face of overwhelming information that your conclusions with respect to the two contracts discussed below were wrong, you have resorted to insulting dedicated City employees whose sole interests is to ensure the integrity of City contracts and prompt payment to its vendors. Your name calling that my staff or anyone else at the Comptroller's Office are "low level bureaucrats" with a "slavish adoration of red tape" is false and abusive. Your tone and comments are an embarrassment to the Mayor and his administration.

Since the start of Comptroller Hevesi's administration, we have attempted to work with the Giuliani team in a cooperative effort to ensure the efficiency and responsibility of the City's multi-billion dollar contracting business. Good contracts, contractors and efficient contracting processes are in the City's best interest. Hundreds of times in the past, we have quietly informed mayoral staff of problems, many serious, with a contract transaction we had reviewed. Our efforts, and those of the responsible City contracting staff with whom we worked, quickly and efficiently resolved the problem without fanfare or publicity. That is good governance.

To the detriment of the City and its vendors, MOC has purposely brought that cooperation to an end. Instead, MOC has elevated a rigid, inaccurate and misguided belief that

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