🔴 LIVE: Oversight - Transparency of City Contracts

The New York City Council Committee on Contracts held an oversight hearing on October 30, 2026, on transparency of city contracts, focusing on the Passport procurement platform and proposals to improve small capital projects. Council members cited about $36 billion in FY2026 procurement across more than 29,000 transactions and at least $120 million spent on Passport maintenance and upgrades over roughly a decade. The Mayor’s Office of Contract Services described upcoming Passport Release 7, which is intended to let eligible invoice submissions proceed while budget modifications are pending, and reported average service-desk resolution time of eight days, down from 21 days in 2025. Officials also reported about $1 billion in unpaid invoices in the queue as of October and an average agency invoice-payment time of 22 days, compared with 41 days previously. Discussion covered vendor usability, reporting and transparency, system stability, the city’s dependence on vendor-owned software, and possible future technology options. No contract award or vote was reported.

The committee also heard Intro. 991, concerning a catalog of standard designs for small capital structures; Intro. 1064, concerning timelines for agency approvals and change orders on projects costing $10 million or less; and Intro. 1065, concerning cost benchmarks and reporting for small capital structures. DDC expressed support for standardization in principle but raised concerns about fixed designs and forward-looking benchmarks, and described existing efforts to expedite change-order payments. The administration indicated openness to discussing timelines. DDC also urged a long-term or permanent extension of the Public Works Investment Act to preserve alternative delivery methods, including design-build. The hearing additionally covered an expanded discretionary-grant pilot and contractor insurance initiatives; no legislative action or spending approval was recorded.