‘Master Agreements’ Used for Billions in Spending with Little Transparency

New York, NY — Comptroller Mark Levine today issued a new report examining the effectiveness and transparency of “Master Agreements” deployed over the last four years to swiftly purchase goods and services. Agencies employ “Master Agreements” when there is an anticipated need in the future, but don’t yet know how much or how often they’ll need to make purchases. The findings illustrate a greater need to reform New York City’s “Master Agreements,” which have been found to often stretch past their estimated values.  

“New Yorkers must be able to trust that government is on their side, wisely spending tax dollars and delivering services quickly and effectively. The City’s ability to make vital purchases faster should not come at the cost of transparency for how taxpayer dollars are being spent,” said New York City Comptroller Mark Levine. “Without a clear record of what the City is buying, waste flourishes. We are hard at work to restore New Yorkers trust in government while fighting to have a clear, accurate accounting of our spending at a moment of budget strain.”  

“Master Agreements” allow agencies to have an “on-call” relationship with awarded vendors under pre-arranged contractual terms, allowing them to speed up what is otherwise a lengthy procurement process. Once “Master Agreements” are established, actual purchases are made via Delivery Orders, but the systems tracking those records often lack key details such as the quantity of units purchased. 

A review of the City’s master agreements found:  

• Billions Spent Across Tens of Thousands of Delivery Orders. From Fiscal Years 2022 to 2025, City agencies made an average of 28,057 Delivery Orders annually, equaling more than $8.8 billion over that four-year period. That yearly average was well over the 12,900 new contracts the City signed in FY2025, illustrating the volume of purchases made under these agreements.  

• Inaccurate Estimates, Limited Information.  A deeper dive of completed “Master Agreements” since 2015 found one-third far exceeded their estimates, while another third of them were significantly underspent. Together over this ten-year period, “Master Agreements” overspent what they expected goods and services would cost by $1.6 billion – meaning the City may have missed opportunities to ensure the best possible price. Checkbook NYC users can see the cost of Delivery Orders made under “Master Agreements,” but often not what exactly the City is buying, the quantity, from whom, or the manufacturer.  

• Less Oversight on Fast-Tracked Procurement. The Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) also has the ability to enter specific types of “Master Agreements” called “Accelerated Procurement” contracts to speed up the bidding process. For context, the City entered 346 of these contracts worth more than $625 million since FY22. These contracts are exempt from public hearing requirements and don’t have to be registered with the Comptroller’s Office – depriving them of the same level of oversight as most City contracts.  

• Opportunities for Streamlined, Modernized Systems. Only a handful of Delivery Orders are made through tools that function similarly to online shopping portals for items the city needs. Placing more Delivery Orders through these systems would improve the City’s ability to better capture greater details on what is actually being purchased.  

The Comptroller’s Office offered four key recommendations to balance transparency with the nimbleness required for Master Agreement transactions: 

• Develop a Centralized System for Managing All ‘Master Agreement’ Purchases. Bringing together “Master Agreement” purchases under a centralized system for all “Master Agreement” transactions would provide greater transparency by automating the capture of all key details for these purchases. Having such a system generate Delivery Orders would also take a significant burden off agency staff, who in many cases must manually create each record.  

• Combined Effort on Data Transparency. The Mayor and Comptroller should jointly ensure that data flowing between PASSPort and the City’s Financial Management System be upgraded to capture all transaction details. The public would therefore be able to see order quantities, unit prices, and other key details on Checkbook NYC.  

• Better Estimations for ‘Master Agreement’ Needs. Because agencies such as DCAS rely on tools like optional agency surveys, decisionmakers often struggle to estimate future demand – in turn making it harder for them to negotiate the best price for taxpayers. Improving access to complete and centralized data on the City’s “Master Agreement” purchases would help agencies like DCAS or the Office of Technology and Innovation to develop more accurate needs forecasts. 

• Identify Cost Savings Opportunities. As the City seeks to identify savings and efficiencies in its budget, the Mayor’s Office should examine the high share of “Master Agreements” to better understand where or how the City may have overpaid for goods and services. Better oversight and planning can potentially drive down those costs, as well as help the City renegotiate better rates.  

You can click here to read the full report: https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/the-monty-hall-contracts-unchecked-spending-across-the-citys-master-agreements 

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