A report released Monday by the City Comptroller’s Office found that the Parks and Recreation Department lost a potential $8.8 million in revenue last fiscal year because of bad practices in awarding concession contracts for city attractions. About $728,000 of that lost revenue came from Queens, the report said.
According to the Comptroller’s office, Parks has issues maintaining continuous service at concessions throughout the city, often not giving itself enough time to solicit new contracts and not properly explaining why it rejects some bidders.
Parks gave itself less than a year to finalize a new contract before a previous one ended for 377 of the contracts that expired between 2008 and 2010, the report said.
For all but 14 of those attractions, there was at least a one-month gap of time between the old contract expiring and the new one kicking in, and for 105 of the concessions, no contract was awarded at all.
“… Parks allowed itself an average of 2.5 months to complete the solicitation and award process. However, this process takes considerably more time to complete—10.7 months,” the report said.
That led to the bulk of hypothetically lost revenue—$6.9 million.
According to a breakdown of the concessions that lapsed or were not awarded, Parks missed out on $9,325 of revenue from two locations in Elmhurst, $7,180 of revenue from two locations at Juniper Valley Park in Middle Village, and $2,000 of revenue from three locations in Ridgewood.
City Comptroller John Liu also criticized Park’s record-keeping practices, saying it was impossible to sniff out any conflicts of interest or determine if Parks awarded contracts to appropriate bidders.
“Furthermore, our review found that Parks failed to maintain critical documents or to document key decisions that ensure the integrity of concession awards for the competitive sealed bid and proposal processes,” the report said.
One notable omission in the report was that there was no mention of Forest Park Carousel, an attraction that has been closed since 2008 and gone through three rounds of bidding with no results. Parks’ only feedback on the situation was to say that any bids received were not in the city’s best interest— rebuffing any attempts by bidders to find out how they could rework their proposals to better fit the City’s needs.
Although there was no specific mention of Forest Park, that practice was criticized by the report.
“Parks rejected all bids and proposals for 11 concession solicitations without required written justification. Consequently, Parks lost concessions revenue of more than $1.9 million,” the report stated.
According to city regulations, Parks must award a concessions contract to the highest rated bidder unless it determines the contract would not be in the City’s best interest. If Parks officials decide that no bids are suitable, they must submit written justification for that opinion if it’s for a significant concession.
“However, for these 11 solicitations, Parks made no such determinations. For example, in 2009, Parks rejected all bids for a significant concession to sell t-shirts in multiple locations in Central Park and Theodore Roosevelt Park. Parks resolicited this concession in 2010 and again rejected all bids. In both instances, Parks did not maintain documentation to justify its decision,” the report states. “This concession has not operated since June 2009, resulting in approximately $643,222 in foregone revenue.”
When asked about Forest Park Carousel, Scott Sieber, a spokesman for the Comptroller, said the report didn’t include the carousel because they found that Parks acted appropriately.
Parks was not required to explain its decision to reject the proposals because Forest Park Carousel wouldn’t generate $100,000 of revenue, the contract wasn’t for 10 or more years and there was no significant land use impacts and implications—any of which would qualify a concession as “significant” and require an explanation.
Parks was given a chance to respond in the report and said that there is no rule requiring them to guarantee continuous operations at concessions.
A letter from Robert Garafola, Parks’ deputy commissioner for management and budget, defended their handling of the more than 400 concessions in the city.
He wrote that the delays in awarding new contracts indicates sound management, which screens out bad concessionaires, legal concerns or potential criminal activity.
“The Report’s characterization of the decisions as examples of ‘forgone revenue’ apparently indicate that the Comptrollers’ Office would have Parks choose to ignore criminal activity in favor of continued revenue streams, and/or engage in extra-le- gal means to regain control of our facilities rather than allowing litigation to take its course. Parks rejects those conclusions in their entirety,” Parks’s statement said.
The response is dated Nov. 2—12 days before news broke about a federal probe into Liu’s fundraising practices.
By Jeremiah Dobruck
