New York, New Jersey Hide full details of virus spending – NBC New York

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

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

An online database maintained by the State Comptroller’s Office lists basic information about those transactions, including the names of the sellers and the dates and amounts of payments.

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

Nationwide, reports from The Associated Press have revealed that since the virus began spreading in the United States through the summer, states have spent more than $ 7 billion on state-of-the-art personal protective and medical equipment. such as infrared fans and thermometers. Much of this expenditure was incurred outside the normal competitive bidding process and was not previously disclosed to the public.

Each state, except New York and New Jersey, responded to the PA’s request for public records, providing a detailed breakdown of expenditures and suppliers.

“This is public information in black letters,” said Bill Hammond, a member of the Empire Center for Public Policy’s Senior Fellow for Health Policy Bill Hammond. “There is nothing clearer that the public has a right to know than how their money is spent.”

The AP first requested details about the spring acquisitions, but Cuomo’s administration never provided them. Cuomo’s budget office asked the AP in July to formally submit a request through the New York Open Records Act. Since then, the administration has sent AP monthly notices saying it needs more time to search and review records. The most recent estimate was from the middle to the end of January.

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

New Jersey also did not provide purchase orders for personal protective equipment, saying that meeting the request would be “substantially disruptive to the agency’s operations.”

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

“Due to the number of contracts and purchase orders that meet your request, it would be substantially disruptive for the Agency’s operations to collect each individual contract or purchase order, identify the specific source of funding and review it for any necessary pre-production wording. “, Said the State Department of Health in response to the AP’s request.

The failure to provide full transparency for COVID-19 procurement leaves unanswered how much money states have spent on necessary items that have risen rapidly in price and the extent to which they have targeted untested suppliers at a time when the federal government has measure these acquisitions to states.

Cameron Macdonald, executive director of the Government Justice Center, said the data could also shed light on questions about the stockpile of protective equipment and medical supplies ahead of the pandemic.

“Nobody knows how much it has expired, how much they have been playing since the spring,” he said.

By the end of March, several states had suspended regular guarantees for the award of contracts amid fierce competition between states, counties, hospitals and even other countries for ventilators and equipment to protect front-line health workers.

Cuomo promised companies that could help make protective gear for New York that they would not have “bureaucracy.” He sent personnel to China as part of efforts to buy 7,000 fans, but warned that the state still needed federal help: “I tried everything differently. “

Some specific acquisitions have been publicly confirmed by the Cuomo administration to the media. These include payments of $ 122 million to Brooklyn-based Dome International for a hopeful 5,700 fans and $ 69 million to Silicon Valley businessman Yaron Oren Pines.

But few details about these acquisitions have been published. Cuomo’s aides said the state is trying to recover some or all of the payments made to companies that did not produce the promised equipment.

“While the vast majority of the goods were received, there were a few cases where the ordered items were not delivered in whole or in part,” said General Services Bureau spokeswoman Heather Groll.

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

She declined to say what orders were broken and how much money the state is trying to recover, saying it “does not want to jeopardize its bargaining power by providing details.”

AP searched 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 Board, which oversees the state’s public records law, “requires custodians to routinely grant immediate access to budgets, bills, receipts, contracts.” (New Jersey refers to purchase orders as vouchers.)

“It is deeply worrying that they would deny access to payment vouchers, which are quintessential public records that help people monitor how taxpayers’ money is being spent,” said CJ Griffin, a New Jersey lawyer who specializes in public record law.