Adams takes aim at city’s ‘waste, fraud, abuse’ with new appointments
/
Lisa Flores (left) and Marjorie Landa (right) were tapped by Mayor-elect Eric Adams to lead the Mayor’s Office of Contract Services and the newly-created Mayor’s Office of Risk Management and Compliance, respectively. Photos via NYC Comptroller
By Jacob Kaye
Mayor-elect Eric Adams made a pair of appointments Tuesday who he hopes will help fix “inefficiencies,” “inequalities” and who will root out “waste, fraud and abuse in our [city] agencies.”
Adams named Lisa Flores as the new director of the Mayor’s Office of Contract Services and Marjorie Landa as the head of the newly-created Mayor’s Office of Risk Management and Compliance.
Both Flores and Landa join the new administration from the New York City comptroller’s office, where they both currently serve.
“I'm a big believer that if you don't inspect what you expect, it’s all suspect,” Adams said. “For far too long, our system has been suspect in the city, and we're going to turn that around and start giving New Yorkers their money's worth.”
Flores, who is currently the deputy comptroller for contracts and procurement in the comptroller’s office, has been working in city government for nearly two decades. It won’t be her first stint in the Mayor’s Office of Contract Services – she previously served there as a deputy director.
“For me returning to MOCS in this role presents a unique opportunity to utilize my oversight and government experience in a very different but impactful way,” Flores said. “Together, with the team and in collaboration with stakeholders, the office will work towards implementing best practices, championing reforms that are informed by a broad cross section of voices and leverage all of the tools in the procurement toolbox to help build a procurement environment that is collaborative, business friendly, that fosters innovation.”
In her role as the first-ever head of the Office of Risk Management and Compliance, Landa will oversee an office charged with “reducing the risk of fraud and waste, maximizing city revenues and improving the effectiveness of government operations,” according to Adams.
Landa currently serves as the deputy comptroller for audits and investigations, where she’s served for the past eight years. She previously served as general council and as a deputy commissioner in the city’s Department of Investigation.
The appointee said her goal is to “improve city services across the board,” in her new role.
“I've seen how important it is for the city to get out in front of problems by spotting and fixing weaknesses and vulnerabilities before they allow waste, fraud and abuse to take hold, draining city funds and degrading vital services,” Landa said. “Mayor-elect Adams has tasked this office with working proactively with every city agency to identify and find solutions to problems that waste city funds and hamper the delivery of programs and services…[and] it will position the mayor's office to provide support resources and guidance where needed and to respond quickly when problems emerge.”
When asked if there were any agencies that the mayor-elect had already identified as those with issues, Adams mentioned the New York City Housing Authority, the Department of Correction and the Department of Education.
“There's a number of agencies that are just taking taxpayer dollars, and we're not producing a good product – we have to produce a better product,” he said.
Both Landa and Flores will serve under newly-named City Hall chief legal counsel Brendan McGuire, whose father, Robert McGuire, was a former commissioner of the NYPD. McGuire is a former assistant U.S. attorney and led the public corruption unit and terrorism and international narcotics unit in the Southern District.
