Overview
- The mayoral front-runner introduced a "curing procurement" agenda for the Education Department during an Upper West Side rollout.
- The plan calls for annual audits of the top 50 vendors and the 25 largest contracts, with each agreement scrutinized again at renewal.
- Structural changes would merge the DOE’s two procurement offices, open borough contracting hubs, migrate contracts to the city’s PassPort portal, and require fiscal training and certification for procurement staff.
- A public vendor-rating dashboard would allow educators to grade providers on quality, timeliness, and reliability to boost accountability.
- Mamdani projects at least a 10% reduction in redundant contract spending and says the measures would speed procurement and reduce retroactive and emergency deals; he gave no dollar estimate, and the DOE budget is reported at about $41.2 billion with roughly $10 billion in contracts.