New York, New Jersey Hide complete virus spending details: NBC New York

New York and New Jersey, first hot spots during the COVID-19 pandemic, have so far refused to publish detailed breakdowns of their spending on personal protective equipment and medical equipment during the frantic first months of the virus outbreak.

The administration of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, said the state invested $ 830 million through nearly 400 contracts in protective equipment and durable medical equipment from March to November.

An online database maintained by the state control office lists basic information about these offers, including the names of the sellers and the dates and amounts of payments.

But state officials have for months rejected requests for public records of purchase orders that would reveal full details, such as how many masks, gowns and fans he ordered from each supplier, how many orders were fulfilled, and how much he has recovered from. failed agreements.

Nationwide, reports from The Associated Press revealed that since the virus spread to the United States through the summer, states have spent more than $ 7 billion on personal protective equipment and high-end medical equipment. , such as fans and infrared thermometers. Much of this expenditure was made outside the normal competitive bidding process and had not previously been publicly disclosed.

All states except New York and New Jersey responded to AP’s request for public records by providing a detailed breakdown of spending and providers.

“This is public information in bold,” said Bill Hammond, a senior member of the Empire Center for Public Policy’s health policy. “There is nothing clearer that the public has a right to know how their money is spent.”

The AP first requested details on the purchases in the spring, but the Cuomo administration never provided them. Cuomo’s budget office asked AP in July to formally file an application through the New York Open Records Act. Since then, the administration has sent monthly notifications to the AP to tell it it needs more time to search and review records. The last estimate was from mid to late January.

Cuomo’s office and the Department of Health did not respond to requests for comment to explain the repeated delays.

New Jersey also failed to provide orders to purchase personal protective equipment, saying complying with the request would be “substantially detrimental to the agency’s operations.”

The state provided a one-page document showing it was spending $ 164 million on 153 million pieces of equipment, including masks, gloves, goggles, beds and even morgue trucks.

“Due to the number of contracts and purchase orders that respond to your request, it would be detrimental to the agency’s operations to compile each individual purchase contract or order, identify the specific source of funding, and review it for if there were necessary drafts before production, ”the state Department of Health said in response to the PA’s request.

The failure to provide full transparency in COVID-19 purchases leaves unanswered how much money states spend on necessary items that quickly skyrocket in price and the extent to which they were addressed to untested suppliers at a time when the federal government largely left these states.

Cameron Macdonald, executive director of the Government Justice Center, said the data could also shed light on issues related to the state’s stockpile of protective equipment and medical supplies before the pandemic.

“No one knows how much of all this expired, to what extent they were playing to recover in the spring,” he said.

By the end of March, several states had suspended the usual guarantees for awarding contracts amid stiff competition between states, counties, hospitals and even other countries for ventilators and equipment to protect front-line medical workers.

Cuomo promised companies they could help make protective equipment for New York that would have no “bureaucracy.” He sent personnel to China as part of efforts to acquire 7,000 fans, but warned that the state still needed federal help: “We have tried everything otherwise.”

Some specific purchases have been publicly confirmed by the Cuomo administration to the media. Among them are $ 122 million in payments to Brooklyn-based Dome International for 5,700 expected fans and $ 69 million to Silicon Valley businessman Yaron Oren Pines.

But few details of these purchases have been given. Cuomo’s aides have said the state was trying to recover some or all of the payments made to companies that did not produce promised material.

“While the vast majority of goods have been received, there have been some cases where the items ordered have not been delivered in whole or in part,” said Heather Groll, a spokeswoman for the Office of General Services.

About $ 223 million has been recovered so far, he said in a written statement.

She declined to specify which orders were not complied with and how much money the state is trying to recover, and said she “does not want to jeopardize its bargaining power by providing details.”

The AP looked for purchase orders that included the name and address of the sellers, the date, a description of the items purchased, the quantity of items purchased, and the price.

The New Jersey Government Records Council, which oversees the state’s public records law, “requires custodians to normally grant immediate access to budgets, bills, vouchers, contracts.” (New Jersey refers to purchase orders as vouchers).

“It’s deeply troubling that it’s denied access to payment vouchers, which are public records par excellence that help people control how taxpayer money is spent,” said CJ Griffin, a New Jersey attorney who specializes. in law of public records.