DDC Improves and Simplifies How it Pays Vendors

DDC Improves and Simplifies How it Pays Vendors

Making it easier to work with the City while speeding up projects and cutting paperwork by 65%

DDC: Denisse Moreno, 718-391-1854, [email protected]

(Long Island City, NY - March 25, 2026) NYC Department of Design and Construction (DDC) Acting Commissioner Eduardo del Valle announced today that DDC has a new payment process for vendors, with fewer forms and approvals required resulting in payment packages with 65 percent less paperwork, and reducing the time it takes to review a payment request by 33 percent. The improvements build on reforms in the agency's Strategic Blueprint and will make it easier for firms to work with the City while reducing administrative burdens and speeding up projects.

"It's important that we make it easier for firms to work with us because it increases competition for our contracts, driving down costs for taxpayers," said NYC Department of Design and Construction Acting Commissioner Eduardo del Valle. "The new system will support timely and accurate processing while replacing outdated bureaucratic procedures that were in many cases redundant and unnecessary. We will also soon have a new guide and glossary which will help contractors and subcontractors, including M/WBEs and small emerging businesses, to navigate the new process and get their payments faster."

"Our vision for New York City is only as good as our ability to deliver on the large-scale infrastructure projects that turn ideas into reality," said Deputy Mayor for Operations Julia Kerson. "This new process reduces overly burdensome paperwork for vendors by 65% and cuts down on payment review time by 33%. When we make it easier for contractors to work with us, New Yorkers pay less and projects move faster-and that's a win for everyone."

DDC's new simplified payment checklists and forms eliminate hundreds of lines of outdated requirements and other document requests that are unrelated to payments, including five notary requirements and unnecessary wet signatures from multiple forms. The reform consolidated three division checklists - Public Building, Infrastructure and Site Safety-into two smaller construction checklists, one for initial and partial payments, and one for substantial and final payments. The new system substantially reduced the payment packages by an average of 65 percent in size. Additionally, agency review times for all packages were reduced by 33 percent compared to when older forms and checklist were used.

The new checklists and forms can be easily found on DDC's website.

The new program is the result of years of work by DDC's Payment Reform Taskforce, which was created in 2023 to brainstorm ideas and meet with industry partners to collect feedback. The upgrades were also presented during project management workshops in early 2025. Since then, several pilot projects have successfully used the new payment process, including the Brownsville Multi-Service Center, a design-build project in Brooklyn, and the Queens County Farm Museum restoration project.

DDC continues its commitment to bringing capital projects to New Yorkers faster with its use of alternate forms of project delivery outside of the traditional system of lowest bidder contracting. Last month, DDC celebrated the opening of the $141 million Shirley Chisholm Recreation Center in Flatbush, Brooklyn, a design-build project was completed at least three years faster than would have been possible with lowest bidder contracting. The agency also has five projects in its new CM-Build program for libraries and cultural projects.

About the NYC Department of Design and Construction
The Department of Design and Construction is the City's primary capital construction project manager, providing New York's diverse communities in all five boroughs with new or renovated public buildings such as firehouses, libraries, police precincts, and new or upgraded roads, sewers and water mains. To manage this $34 billion portfolio, DDC partners with other City agencies, architects and consultants, whose experience bring efficient, innovative and environmentally-conscious design and construction strategies to City projects. For more information, please visit nyc.gov/ddc.