What this is
CROL-List is a search tool for The City Record (opens in new tab). That is the City of New York's official daily paper. In it, every agency must publish (opens in new tab) its contracts, hearings, rule changes, rezonings, and staff moves. CROL-List lets you search the record by interest. You can follow a contract, look up a job title, track a rezoning, or get an email when something new matches.
Where the data comes from
All of it comes from public, official data: City Record Online (dg92-zbpx) (opens in new tab) · Citywide Payroll (k397-673e) (opens in new tab) · Civil Service List (vx8i-nprf) (opens in new tab) · ZAP Projects (hgx4-8ukb) (opens in new tab) · PASSPort (opens in new tab) · Checkbook NYC (opens in new tab).
The data, to be honest
The City Record dataset is 1.09 million notices back to 2003 — and it is not what it looks like at first glance. Our team's exploratory analysis of the full dataset found quirks that would silently mislead if we didn't correct for them, so here is exactly what we do:
- 87.5% of all rows are civil-service personnel changes, not civic notices. Each stat on this site is counted within its own section — a "global" City Record number would really be a personnel-file number.
- A few contract amounts are data-entry errors — three rows claim $10 billion or more, topping out at $96 trillion, a housing-services award whose amount field is plainly a typo (the largest verified real award is about $6.68 billion, the city's 10-year electricity contract with NYPA). Money filters and digests exclude amounts of $10 billion or more. One typo can't dominate every ranking.
- Some "due dates" aren't deadlines. Notices for pre-qualified lists use fake dates in the year 2090 or later. We mark these as "no fixed deadline (rolling)" so no one puts a date on their calendar that isn't real.
- Agency names come in two conventions (old ALL-CAPS and Title Case — 312 raw strings for about 150 real agencies). Our name tool treats them as one.
- Some agencies file contract awards outside the City Record entirely — for those, we check Checkbook NYC (for the Housing Authority) and the NYS Authorities Budget Office's open procurement datasets (for other public authorities), and say so plainly when neither source covers an agency.
The agency-name crosswalk shows each source name and every spelling linked to it. Its data guide explains the limits and links to JSON and CSV files.
Searches on this site always show live data from NYC Open Data (opens in new tab). Email alerts check for new matches once a day. Want the numbers themselves? The Data shows the record at a glance — sections, volume, procurement mix, top agencies and vendors — computed live with these same rules.
Flags and context, explained
Procurement notices carry two kinds of computed notes. Both are statistical context, not findings or blame. A flag just means "worth a closer look." Every formula has a fair reason behind it. Emergencies really happen. Some markets are specialized and have few bidders. Name matching is not perfect. This method follows two guides. One is the Open Contracting Partnership's red-flags guide (opens in new tab). The other is Opentender's (opens in new tab) integrity rules.
- ⚑ Short ad window — the days between when a notice is posted and when the answer is due. We flag it when it is 10 days or fewer and less than half the agency's own median. The median comes from that agency's last 200 notices. Short windows favor incumbents who already knew the work was coming.
- ⚑ Non-competitive method — the notice says it will pick a vendor without a full contest. It may be a deal made through talks, a single chosen source, an urgent buy, or a test project. This can be fair at times. But it is always good to know.
- ⚑ Repeat awards — the same vendor name shows up on 3 or more award notices at the same agency within 90 days. This can point to task orders under a blanket contract just as much as favoritism. The flag just counts them — you decide what it means.
- Context strip — how big an award is, shown as a percentile of that agency's awards in the last 12 months (shown only when the agency has 20 or more awards in that time). It also shows the vendor's share of the agency's award dollars in the same time. We use the exact published name. We do not merge name variants here.
All numbers come live from the City Record Open Data (opens in new tab) when you view the notice. These are awards as published. The numbers can lag behind contract registration and real payment. Nothing here says anyone did wrong. It just saves you the math.
Send feedback
Found a bug, want a feature, or have a thought? Send it here. We read everything. No account needed.
If you add your email, we only use it to reply. Each submission also saves some basic info — your IP address and browser. We keep this info for a short time to stop spam. See Privacy.
Privacy
CROL-List uses no accounts, no cookies, no cross-site tracking, no ad tech.
- Searches and filters use NYC Open Data.
- The "Ask" box lets you search in plain English. Your text is sent to Anthropic's Claude, which turns it into filters. We do not save your text.
- Subscribing or sending feedback saves what you send us. This includes your alert or message and your email, if you share one. We also keep some basic info about your request, like your IP address and browser. We keep this for a short time to stop spam and abuse. Every alert email has a one-click unsubscribe link.
- Page views are tracked with Cloudflare Web Analytics. It uses no cookies and only shows totals. It counts visits. It does not know who you are or follow you to other sites.
About our content
An AI assistant (Claude) drafts this site's copy — headings, explanations, pages like this one. A human editor checks it before it goes live. The data is not AI-generated. Every notice, dollar figure, and date comes straight from NYC Open Data (opens in new tab), unedited.