A ‘blank check’ to ACS firm

Consultant cashing in

The cost of hiring a private consultant to oversee the city’s troubled child-welfare agency could run into untold millions of dollars because the outside firm that was tapped for the task is reportedly billing $250 to $550 per hour without a contract.

And the fees to Kroll Associates could keep flowing for years, WNBC-TV reported Wednesday night.

Gov. Cuomo ordered the state Office of Children and Family Services to investigate the city Administration for Children’s Services’ handling of child-abuse cases after Zymere Perkins, a 6year-old Harlem boy, was beaten to death in September 2016.

In January, the state hired the Kroll team, which is headed by former state Inspector General Joseph Spinelli, to serve as the ACS monitor.

Spinelli had served under Gov. Mario Cuomo, the current governor’s dad.

Sources told WNBC that the state settled on Kroll despite suggestions that a reputable childwelfare foundation could do the work at low or no cost.

WNBC said it had obtained documents showing the fees are open-ended, even though Kroll is a providing the city with a 20 percent discount off its regular fees.

The deal rang alarm bells with the head of the City Council’s Finance Committee.

“Five hundred fifty dollars? Times multiple people? In multiple meetings for an endless amount of days? This could potentially cost our city millions of dollars,” Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras (D-Queens), chair of the committee, told WNBC.

“Right now, as it stands, it is just a never-ending blank check.”

The Cuomo administration defended its approval of the ACS monitor and noted that the city negotiated the costs of the service.

“Earlier this year, the state required the city to retain an independent monitor to help ACS address its troubling failures in highrisk cases — specifically after four children died under its jurisdiction in the span of nine months. Any fees associated with these services are negotiated between the monitor and the city, but it’s hard to weigh the costs against the life of a child,” said a spokeswoman for the state Office of Children and Family Services.

Neither the ACS nor the mayor’s office responded to requests for comment.

Kroll was also hired in 2009 by the Bloomberg administration to review the city’s efforts to halt the flow of illegal guns.

The contract started at $2 million but grew to $3.7 million.