The Empire Center is calling on the Hochul administration to promptly release records of its spring 2024 communications with Public Partnerships LLC, the company that later won a controversial $1 billion contract under Medicaid’s Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program.

The Empire Center initially requested the records from both the Health Department and the governor’s office in early September, when the existence of the communications first came to light. Both agencies have since sought to postpone responding until at least November and possibly beyond.

On Tuesday, the Center formally objected to any further delay by filing appeals under New York’s Freedom of Information Law. The agencies have 10 business days to reply. If the appeals are rejected, the Center would then have the option of seeking a court order.

Also this week, state Senators James Skoufis and Gustavo Rivera announced that they were seeking documents and other information from both Health Commissioner James McDonald and the CEO of Public Partnerships.

“We join Senators Skoufis and Rivera in urging the state to release these records as soon as possible,” said Empire Center Senior Fellow Bill Hammond. “Further delay will only raise more questions about whether the Hochul administration awarded this important and costly contract in a fair and legal way.”

New York’s Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program, known as CDPAP, allows disabled people to choose and manage their home-care aides – who can be friends or family members – with Medicaid paying their wages. It’s one of the fastest growing components of the Medicaid budget, with costs that more than tripled from $3.1 billion in 2018 to $11.2 billion in 2024 – a trend the Hochul administration has called unsustainable.

As a last-minute addition to the state budget passed in April 2024, Governor Hochul and the Legislature agreed to consolidate the CDPAP under a single statewide contractor – replacing hundreds of smaller “fiscal intermediary”  firms that had handled payroll processing and other duties on behalf of hundreds of thousands of enrollees. 

The Health Department opened its bidding process in July of that year and in October named Public Partnerships LLC, known as PPL, as the winner of a five-year contract worth approximately $1 billion.

The transition, which took effect in April, was the subject of multiple lawsuits and widespread complaints from CDPAP recipients, their caregivers and the fiscal intermediaries that PPL replaced.

At a state Senate hearing in August, lawmakers challenged the fairness of the contracting process – sharing copies of draft bill language naming PPL as the preferred contractor. They said the draft had circulated at the Capitol before the 2024-25 budget had been finalized or bidding had opened.

At the hearing, Health Commissioner James McDonald denied any knowledge of the draft language. An official from PPL, Patty Byrnes, testified that there had been “no conversations” between the company and the state before bidding opened.

In a letter to lawmakers the next week, however, Byrnes asked to amend her testimony. She said she had recently become aware of “general communications with DOH staff … in late March and early April [of 2024] when NY was considering the possibility of moving to a single [fiscal intermediary] FI program.”

In light of this revelation, the Empire Center requested records of any correspondence or meetings between state officials and PPL during the two months in question. The request, dated Sept. 8, went to both the Health Department and the governor’s office under the Freedom of Information Law, which gave them 20 business days to either provide the records to commit to a “date certain” when they would be made available.

When that 20-day deadline arrived on Oct. 7, both agencies said they needed more time to complete the request, but neither committed to a firm deadline for turning over the records. The governor’s office promised only a “status update” on Nov. 5, and the Health Department said it “expects to complete its process by Nov. 21” while adding that the delay might extend “beyond the above date.”

In the past, agencies have issued repeated extension notices of this type, withholding the release of public records by months or even years.

In its appeals, the Empire Center argued that these open-ended postponements were not consistent with the law. Noting that the CDPAP contract was a matter of “urgent public interest,” the Center called for the PPL records to be released without further delay.

For more information, contact Bill Hammond.

The Empire Center, based in Albany, is an independent, not-for-profit, non-partisan think tank dedicated to promoting policies that can make New York a better place to live, work and raise a family.