NYC signed $300M deal with energy start-up for job training, but doesn’t know if it worked

A $300 million initiative that combined job training with anti-violence campaigns was shut down earlier this year because New York City officials say they don’t know how many people participated or found work thanks to the program.

The city’s contracts with BlocPower, which finances and installs electric appliances and other energy-efficient upgrades to homes and buildings, have received little public attention beyond mostly positive coverage about the jobs program and the company’s founding CEO, Donnel Baird, a former campaign director for President Barack Obama. But behind the scenes, a financial dispute has arisen between the city’s youth services and criminal justice agencies, BlocPower, and subcontractors who say they haven’t been paid in months.

City officials say they have no idea how many people enrolled in the program, how many graduated, nor whether they received jobs in the green energy industry.

The program started with a $24 million deal under Mayor Bill de Blasio and was supercharged by Mayor Eric Adams, who awarded BlocPower another contract worth nearly $176 million to expand the employment training and distribute additional city funds to groups combating gun violence.

Public records show the city has paid BlocPower $182 million of a total of $308 million.

But the debate over the pricey BlocPower jobs program isn’t just about employment. City Comptroller Brad Lander says it’s another example of the Adams administration’s misuse of no-bid contracts awarded to favored companies without a competitive process.

“New York City taxpayers should be able to count on city agencies to conduct fair and transparent bidding, without favoritism, and make sure we’re getting what we pay for,” said Lander, who is challenging Adams in next year’s Democratic mayoral primary.

BlocPower began in 2014 by offering heat pump installations and other green-building retrofits. It later secured contracts to install Wi-Fi at NYCHA campuses and “decarbonize” the city of Ithaca – though both efforts have stalled, with the city withdrawing from the Wi-Fi project. The company had never set up a large-scale job training program before it was awarded its first city contract, but company officials had connections to influential city leaders. The Brooklyn-based company employed Calvin Thompson, son of J. Phillip Thompson, deputy mayor of strategic initiatives under the de Blasio administration.

J. Phillip Thompson told Gothamist he had no role in awarding the initial emergency contract with BlocPower. Calvin Thompson did not respond to a request for comment. BlocPower said the two had nothing to do with getting the contract.

Baird, the company’s founder, was a member of Adams’ transition team.

The ambitious training program — established in a matter of weeks in the summer of 2021 — provided a mix of social services and paid construction, electrical and HVAC training to formerly incarcerated New Yorkers and others who lived in neighborhoods with high rates of gun violence, according to the terms of the agreement with the city.

In October 2022, Adams announced in a press release a “significant expansion of the Precision Employment Initiative,” hailing it as “an upstream solution to several downstream problems, including gun violence, unemployment and environmental injustice.”

Less than two years later, the Adams administration’s view of BlocPower changed. The Department of Youth and Community Development declined to renew the job training program over the summer. City Hall spokesperson Allison Maser told Gothamist that BlocPower did not release information about the program’s performance, as required by its contracts.

“After months of analysis by DYCD, it became clear that BlocPower failed to meet reporting standards, and that the program needed to be reimagined and relaunched,” Maser said.

BlocPower disputed the criticisms, saying they provided regular reports as required and earned additional contracts because they had competently started a program from scratch. In addition to job training, the city made BlocPower an intermediary to distribute $53.4 million to 15 organizations running anti-gun violence programs. The maneuver allowed the city to avoid a cumbersome process for issuing individual contracts.

“If there are concerns about the outcomes of the PEI program, that is news to BlocPower as we regularly provided reports to [the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice] and DYCD and their leadership attended graduation ceremonies, met participants who received full-time employment, and conducted site visits,” BlocPower spokesperson Jason Ortiz said. “This narrative runs counter to the reality that the city gave us a new and bigger assignment afterwards.”

Baird, BlocPower’s founding CEO, stepped down last month without giving a reason. He referred requests for comment to the company, which issued a statement commending Baird for “positioning BlocPower as a leader in urban sustainability.”

‘Everything at the same time’

The three-month job training program paid participants $20 an hour and focused on crucial job skills, offered work safety credentials and provided social services. Some participants told Gothamist they learned construction skills, got training to install and repair HVAC systems, and received OSHA certification.

But gauging the program’s overall effectiveness is not possible, according to City Hall. DYCD commissioned a $260,000 assessment by researchers from John Jay College. The report authors praised the wages, skills training and social benefits for participants. But the report determined city agencies and BlocPower never set measurements to determine if the program was working — or what success actually meant.

“I was a big fan of this initiative, and it’s just a shame that it wasn’t done in a way that would be sustainable,” said Jeffrey Butts, director of the Research and Evaluation Center at John Jay College, and a coauthor of the report.

Butts said the program was oversold as a way to reduce violent crime by putting low-income New Yorkers on career tracks after just a few months of training.

“They could have said, ‘Let’s see if delivering these intensive services and supports will result in meaningful, measurable changes in someone’s readiness for employment,’” Butts said. “Just do that. Just focus on one aspect of the program instead of trying to do everything at the same time.”

The program also led to disputes with some subcontractors tasked with training participants or providing social services.

At least three groups have complained to city officials about hundreds of thousands of dollars in missing payments, according to emails obtained by Gothamist through a Freedom of Information Law request.

Nicholson Pierre, whose organization ARA Wellness contracted with BlocPower to provide counseling and case management, like housing referrals and help obtaining benefits, said his company is still owed more than $1 million. He notified the Department of Investigation last month, according to emails shared with Gothamist.

“We were forced to stop running the organization,” Pierre said. “I have employees I couldn’t pay.”

BlocPower said it doesn’t owe any money to ARA and is resolving disputes with other subcontractors.

The city says it won’t pay BlocPower the remainder of its contract until it resolves the payment issues with the other vendors. But Ortiz, the BlocPower spokesperson, said that decision “calls into question the city’s commitment to treat African American-owned [Minority and Women-Owned Business Enterprise] vendors fairly.” Baird, the company’s founder and past CEO, is Black.

An uphill climb for green jobs

Across the country, governments and private-sector firms have introduced job training programs to help people prepare for careers in green energy fields. But participants face an uphill battle when it comes to securing permanent work in the field, Bloomberg reported last month.

At the October 2022 event announcing the training program expansion, Adams said “nearly 30% [of participants] have been paid or placed in full-time, good-paying jobs in the green sector.” An impact report released by BlocPower that same month said roughly a quarter of the 1,700 participants got jobs after completing the program.

City officials didn’t respond to a question about whether they believed those figures were accurate. BlocPower did not provide updated data on outcomes requested for this story.

Ortiz said sustained employment wasn’t something they were supposed to track under the agreements with the city.

“This was meant to be a brief, temporary program to pay and train young men right after COVID to help reduce crime,” he said. “To be clear, employment was not a contractual success metric.”

The program originated in the summer of 2021, after the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice under Mayor de Blasio looked for new ways to prevent rising gun violence in Brownsville in Brooklyn and Mott Haven in the Bronx, according to a June 2021 memo.

Emails included in a lawsuit between BlocPower and a subcontractor claiming it was owed nearly $1.7 million show the jobs program was put together in a rush.

“Someone at Nee [sic] York City Hall had called BlocPower to ask us to hire 500-1000 laborers in six weeks for a six month ‘make work’ employment program,” Baird wrote colleagues and associates in June 2021, asking if setting up the initiative in such a short window was feasible.

The lawsuit was settled last year.

Former BlocPower officials, program participants and several companies hired as trainers and social service providers praised the program’s focus on men of color from communities with high rates of gun violence.

“It allowed people to do something and be active, and for that alone it was successful,” said William Diaz, who owns the company ESC Cabling and contracted with BlocPower to lead Wi-Fi installation and electrical training courses. “I understand some people’s frustrations with saying it was a good plan but wasn’t executed well, but I don’t necessarily agree with that.”

One participant who spoke with Gothamist said he had a mixed experience.

Hakeim Villa, 26, said he was “grateful” for the education and the $20 an hour he earned while attending. But he said few people seemed to get jobs after completing the training.

Villa said he entered the program with three friends. But only one landed a job in what he considered a related field. That friend now works as a custodian at Citi Field. Villa said he eventually got a job as a production assistant for a TV show — a gig he said doesn’t have much to do with BlocPower’s training.

“That’s the only thing they could be better at,” Villa said. “I don’t need anyone to hold my hand, but it seemed like they didn’t really care what we ended up doing.”