New York City's Department of Education told the City Council on Monday that handing over records on roughly 600 contracts, worth a combined $12 billion, would "take months," prompting the Council Speaker to accuse the agency of stonewalling a basic transparency request five months into Mayor Zohran Mamdani's administration.

The confrontation unfolded at a budget hearing where lawmakers pressed DOE officials on why they had not produced a contract list the Council first requested back in March. DOE Chief Procurement Officer Elisheba Lewi explained that the records sit on "a secure system that very few people have access to." Council Speaker Julie Menin was not buying it.

The clash matters for two reasons. The DOE is on track for a record $43 billion budget. And the agency's own schools chancellor, Kamar Samuels, is already under scrutiny for a no-bid contract he signed before joining the Mamdani administration, a contract that a city watchdog found involved split payments apparently designed to dodge financial oversight. When the Council tried to ask Samuels about that deal, the DOE's general counsel stepped in and told him to stop answering, the New York Post reported.

Speaker Menin: 'This should take like an hour'

Menin did not hold back about the DOE's excuse for withholding the contract data. She told officials at the hearing:

"This is again basic, rudimentary data that DOE should be providing to the council, and I'm not sure why we're getting stonewalled."

She pressed further, noting the Council was not asking for printed copies, just a digital file of the contracts. Menin added:

"I just find this troubling, that of the 600, we're not asking for a printed copy, we're asking for a file of the contracts. I mean, this should take like an hour of work to do."

The DOE offered no timeline for compliance. Officials acknowledged during the hearing that procurement reforms remain in "preliminary stages," with no implementation date set. Five months into the Mamdani administration, the department has not audited a single contract.

That record stands in sharp contrast to what Mamdani promised voters. On the campaign trail, the self-described democratic socialist pledged to "cure procurement" and bring DOGE-style audits to wasteful agency contracts, with DOE as a primary target. So far, the cure has not arrived, and the patient is refusing to open the door.

The Samuels contract and the $25,000 checks

The budget hearing grew more contentious when lawmakers turned to the conduct of Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels himself. A recent report from the Special Commissioner of Investigation found that Samuels, while serving as head of District 3 on the Upper West Side in 2023, signed a $180,000 contract with Sean Kreyling, a vendor not approved by the DOE.

The payments were split into $25,000 checks, in what the SCI report described as an apparent attempt to evade city financial oversight. Then, in 2024, Samuels' former deputy superintendent, Mariela Graham, signed a second contract with Kreyling for the same amount.

Council Education Committee Chair Eric Dinowitz, a Bronx Democrat, pressed Samuels on his role in the check-splitting arrangement. Samuels offered a limited acknowledgment.

"I regret the lapses in policy and procedures that took place while I was the superintendent, and the actions in question were all meant to [be] in the pursuit of educational opportunity."

Calling it a "lapse in policy" is generous framing for a scheme the city's own investigator flagged as an apparent end-run around financial controls. The $25,000 check threshold is not arbitrary, it exists precisely because payments above that level trigger additional scrutiny. Splitting a $180,000 contract into checks that fall just under the line is the kind of move that invites hard questions about intent.

DOE lawyer shuts down questions

Those hard questions did not last long. After Samuels testified, DOE General Counsel Liz Vladeck stepped in and advised him not to answer further questions about the contracts. Her stated reason: "active speculation in the press" about the SCI investigation potentially being reopened.

Dinowitz pushed back sharply, telling Vladeck the investigation was already public and its findings available for anyone to download.

"I'm not the press. I'm asking about a closed investigation that is public. Anyone can go to their website and download this."

The exchange captures a pattern that New Yorkers should find troubling. The Council asks for information. The DOE either slow-walks it, claims the system is too difficult to access, or sends a lawyer to shut down questioning. At every turn, the agency's instinct is to limit transparency rather than provide it.

Vladeck also acknowledged that she "personally signed off" on the decision to overrule the watchdog's recommendation to fire Graham over the contracting matter. Graham instead received a two-week suspension, a penalty that, for a $180,000 contracting irregularity flagged by the city's own investigator, amounts to a slap on the wrist.

A $43 billion agency with no accountability timeline

The DOE's record budget makes the lack of oversight especially significant. An agency preparing to spend $43 billion in taxpayer money cannot produce a list of 600 contracts in fewer than "months." Its procurement reforms have no implementation date. Its chancellor signed a no-bid deal with split payments that the city's investigator flagged. And when the City Council, the elected body charged with budget oversight, asks questions, the agency's lawyer tells the chancellor to stop talking.

Mayor Mamdani's office did not return a request for comment Monday. That silence fits a broader pattern. The mayor who promised fiscal reform has presided over an administration that, five months in, has not completed a single contract audit at the city's largest agency.

This is the same city government that has allocated $500,000 for reparations discussions while staring down a $5.4 billion deficit. The same administration overseeing a Parks Department that prioritizes antiracism training while absorbing a $33 million budget cut. The priorities tell you everything about how seriously this administration takes the stewardship of public money.

What the Council still doesn't know

The open questions are substantial. What services did Sean Kreyling actually provide under the $180,000 contracts? Why did Graham sign a second contract with the same unapproved vendor a year later? What other contracts among the 600 in question involve similar irregularities? And why does the DOE's procurement system make it so difficult to produce basic records that the Council Speaker says should take an hour?

None of these questions have been answered. The DOE has offered excuses about secure systems, vague promises about preliminary reforms, and a general counsel willing to intervene the moment testimony gets uncomfortable for the chancellor.

Mamdani has shown a willingness to break with tradition when it suits his political preferences. Breaking with the tradition of transparent government, however, is not the kind of disruption New York taxpayers signed up for.

When a $43 billion agency tells the people's elected representatives that producing a contract list would take months, the word for that isn't complexity. It's obstruction dressed in bureaucratic language, and five months without a single completed audit is the proof.