State Senate’s bid-rigging probe prompts constitutional amendment

State senators want to expand state comptroller oversight of high-dollar state contracts and are also exploring a bill to clarify what private information lawmakers can get from businesses hired by the state, following a recent investigation into changes Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration made to a $9 billion Medicaid home care program.

Sen. Gustavo Rivera is working on a bill that will clarify the Legislature’s power to conduct oversight of private companies and align state and federal trade secret protections. 

Meanwhile, state Sen. James Skoufis carries a constitutional amendment that would require the comptroller to approve state contracts over a certain price set by lawmakers – making it harder for a governor to circumvent. 

Rivera and Skoufis have led a probe for months into the Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program, including evidence that Hochul hand-picked the company Public Partnerships LLC to oversee the program starting last April. The governor has denied the allegations and said the contract followed state law. And Hochul removed the comptroller’s oversight of the changes that restructured the program, which allows disabled or elderly New Yorkers to choose their home caregiver.

“I think we've spotlighted our findings pretty loudly and clearly over the past many months,” Skoufis said at a Senate press conference in Albany. “I think we put the evidence out there, and people can draw their own conclusions.”

Skoufis said he’s worked on the constitutional amendment with state Senate leaders. He’s also working on a bill to codify the role of independent subcontractors, which are supposed to serve as facilitators but have been boxed out by PPL. The legislation would impose penalties for PPL, or any company serving as the program’s fiscal intermediary, if the company acts as a program facilitator.

PPL has said the company always honors requests of any CDPAP user who asks for a change, and all consumers have the option to choose their facilitator.

NY Association on Independent Living Executive Director Lindsay Miller said the legislation could help restore the role Independent Living Centers were meant to have in the program.

“The statute was clear that consumers must retain access to community-based, culturally informed, disability-competent supports, but that is not what is happening on the ground today,” Miller said in a statement to City & State. “Independent Living Centers made staffing and operational investments based on executed contracts with PPL that included agreed-upon consumer capacity targets, and we expected those obligations to be honored.”

The centers are operating at 11% of their intended capacity statewide, Miller added.  

“A stark difference that threatens the stability of the facilitator network and undermines essential supports for thousands of New Yorkers,” she said. 

Skoufis, who leads the Senate Investigations & Government Operations Committee, said his investigation was purely legislative. The U.S. Department of Justice opened a separate probe into Hochul's home care reforms last year, including allegations of bid-rigging.

“We are a legislative body, we are not prosecutors,” he said. “We are not anyone else, sort of in the system, and there may or may not be other people looking at this from other angles.”

Disability advocates were at the Capitol on Tuesday pressing lawmakers to include a proposal in the budget to expand transparency, and requiring the fiscal intermediary to report fiscal data to monitor effective state spending. Hochul and state budget officials claim over $1 billion in savings from the program reforms, but several lawmakers remain skeptical of the number. 

“I don’t believe it,” Rivera told City & State of the governor’s claimed savings last week. “Saying that we save $1.2 billion from the changes to CDPAP is like me saying Salma Hayek is my girlfriend. I’d like it to be true, but until I show up somewhere with her on my arm, it’s not.”