Well that does not bode well

Thank you, that means a lot!

I wish I had suggestions, but this sounds so lovely already 😍

Ryan Fowlers over in Towson may be interested.

His shop deals with a lot of higher end guitars. I’m not too sure if he would be interested in everything but he might be able to point you in the right direction.

>So what? The City should continue letting Metra paying contractors late?

I know city contractors owed over a million dollars all in relatively small repair bills. The bills are over 12 months overdue.

Like the companies which manage 401K accounts or insurance claims, every day they get to hold on and invest that money is more profit for them.

Seems the city needs to pay a company to pay their bills on time. Where have we heard this before?

They changed up their claims department (outsourced it maybe? not entirely sure) along with the entire customer service department on September 1st last year and many providers have been unable to get paid for services rendered, negotiate rates, or even use their billing system since then.

Their phone system even has an automated message set up for it... "If you're calling in reference to claims prior to September 1, press 0. For dates after September 1st, press 1".

Hopkins have a reputation for not paying out?

Unusall in Maryland, I mean in Baltimore at least, all of our grifters are Democrats .... thank God there was not a Christmas Tree with gift card on it, he would have cleaned off all the branches.

Yeah, my thinking as well.

If I do X thing which is wrong it doesn’t make you doing X right.

Twotenny!!!

For smaller companies, sure. But Metra has a $150m contract with the City. They should have enough cash reserves to pay small business owners.

If a company has >25% of its receivables or revenues from one customer, then that’s not ideal. If that was the case here with Metra, then the City should look for another contractor that isn’t so dependent on the City’s contract.

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Guess you have not paid attention to Baltimore City politics the past 10 yrs......

I don't know anything about how this specific contract was phased, but typically you rely on contract funds to pay your job costs (materials, subs, etc). You can use a bank line to bridge a delayed payment from the owner, but it isn't reasonable to maintain enough liquidity to self-fund your backlog.

So what? The City should continue letting Metra paying contractors late? Also, Metra shouldn’t be involved in this contract if their cash flow is so heavily dependent on just one customer, the City.

If that were the direct cause, then the lawyer should have identified that as the direct reason. According to the article, the only "justifications" Metra gave were "Covid, accounting errors, and misunderstanding costs."

There might be some validity to this point, as the city's been known to have issues paying its contractors on time.

>"Metra acknowledges that subcontractors are entitled to timely payment on work that has been completed, and while it does not excuse its own late payments, prime contractors are similarly entitled to timely pay for work completed for the City," July wrote. "The City’s continuous failure to make timely payments impacted Metra’s cash flow and availability of capital, and its ability to make timely payment, particular during and on the heels of the Covid pandemic."

Are you thinking of the Chicagoland commuter rail system...?

> Minority and Women's Business Opportunity Office found Metra repeatedly failed to pay subcontractors on time. The office's chief, Christopher Lundy, said in one case, payment came more than a year after the work was finished, and only happened after the city got involved.

Oh cool, now do Hopkins

The have quite an interesting company name...

From the article: "We acknowledge that we have not always, Metra has not always paid within the seven-day requirement," said Venroy July. "But we need some context here. We all know Baltimore City does not always pay its contractors on time."

Ahhh the good ol' whataboutism in play