A long term bid to establish a “master administrator” to oversee federally-funded programs run through the city Health Department is now coinciding with deep cuts from the Trump administration.
The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is considering vendors for a $15 million three-year contract to manage subcontracts with providers funded by the federal government, according to hearing notices published in the city record. While the department began seeking vendors last summer, before President Donald Trump took office, the contract, which will run through most of his current term, comes as the department reels from whiplash federal cuts in recent weeks that officials say impact the city’s core public health and infectious disease functions.
The master administrator will be responsible for designing, implementing and administering subcontracts for federally funded initiatives. The city is considering at least two vendors, the Fund For Public Health In New York and Public Health Solutions, according to separate hearing notices in the city record. The department is also looking for a master administrator for non-federally funded programs under another $15 million contract.
The Health Department did not say what the position would do that is not being done under the agency’s current contract management process. The new role was not a response to the Trump administration’s recent changes to federal funding streams as requests for proposals were issued before the cuts, said spokeswoman Chantal Gomez.
The city is considering awarding the contract to multiple vendors, including Public Health Solutions, an offshoot of the Health Department, which already manages many of its federal programs. The company brings in over $300 million in annual revenue, 97% of which comes from government sources. The other company, Fund for Public Health in New York, is a public-private partnership with the department for public health initiatives with the private sector. It received $63.6 million in city contracts so far in the current fiscal year, according to records kept by the comptroller’s office, and its tax filings show it had $123 million in revenues in 2023 of which 97%, again, were from government grants.
The new contract, which is set to begin in August, is now landing at a time when the department is on far less certain financial footing after the president signed an executive order that cut $100 million from the city’s infection control budget as part of a roughly $12 billion reduction in pandemic-era aid to state and local health agencies. The city had recently been granted an extension to spend that money, something Interim Health Commissioner Michelle Morse had days earlier described as one positive in an anticipated decline in funding.
