To learn why it’s a bad idea for Washington to issue a blank check to Mayor Eric Adams to house an unlimited number of migrants, listen to Thursday’s City Council hearing on how Adams is awarding billions of dollars in contracts for migrant services.

Councilwomen Gale Brewer (Upper West Side) and Julie Won (western Queens) grilled Adams officials for 3.5 hours on how, exactly, the city is spending taxpayer money for shelter and other services, costing $11 million each day.

As Comptroller Brad Lander, the city’s independent watchdog, told questioners, 10 city agencies have signed 194 contracts worth $5.1 billion with private providers to house, feed, clothe and offer medical care and private security to more than 100,000 newcomers, including 60,400 in city shelter.

Fifteen months ago, the city suspended its checks-and-balances processes to control waste and fraud in contracts, with Adams declaring an “emergency.”

This means the city doesn’t have to follow its procedures of competitive, sealed bids but can just pick the contractor city officials think is appropriate, with no objective criteria.

As Molly Wasow Park, Adams’ social-services commissioner, informed the council of a $240 million contract for thousands of hotel rooms across the city, “I don’t know that anybody bid exactly for the same suite of services. It is a somewhat unusual function.”

Discretion and opacity are never good when handing out billions of dollars.

But they’re particularly worrisome in this administration.

Adams’ former buildings commissioner is under criminal indictment for allegedly selling his ability to exercise discretion to award favors.

And Adams is sanguine even about how things look.

The mayor, in contrast to predecessors, refuses to say who he meets with, as Politico reminds us.

Last week, his corrections commissioner thought it was a good idea to take an entire baseball lineup on a weeklong junket to Paris and London.

So what did we learn from the hearing?

Adams doesn’t want migrant contractors to be seen in public. 

As Won pointed out, the council asked contractor CEOs to testify. But the city told them not to, in violation of the City Charter.

One CEO, Anthony Capone, resigned last week after reporters found out he had lied about his degree. His former company, DocGo, still holds a half-billion-dollar no-bid contract for migrant “human services.”

Adams officials won’t say when this “emergency” might end.

“Why is the regular arrival of asylum seekers still deemed an unforeseen occurrence?” as Won put it. “It’s no longer unforeseeable but . . . seeable.”

Why not return to normal contracting procedures? Officials met this question with silence.

There’s no rationale for which city agency handles which contract. 

New York has a homeless-services department, with experience in procuring hotel rooms and other social services. It also has a health department.

But the half-billion-dollar DocGo “human services” contract is with the city’s Housing Preservation and Development agency.

HPD is an infrastructure agency. It finances and regulates housing. It has nothing to do with human services.

The Roosevelt Hotel remains a mystery. 

The hotel, by Grand Central, is the city’s marquee migrant welcome center and shelter.

But its contract is with the city’s Health and Hospitals Corp.

That distinction matters. As Lander points out, because HHC is a city-funded nonprofit corporation, not a city agency, it does not have to file contracts with the comptroller.

This exemption is an “added barrier to transparency.”

What’s in this contract? The Roosevelt is owned by the government of Pakistan, and the best information is from the Pakistani press.

Some of that information is strange.

As Pakistan’s minster for railways and aviation said in June, “besides earning handsome revenue for our country’s treasury,” this “contract has also saved” the Roosevelt from the “big threat” of “being landmarked.”

Pakistan doesn’t want the city to landmark the Roosevelt because it wants to build a taller building there — but why would our Pakistani friends think that this shelter contract comes with a guarantee against landmarking?

Even the amount is in question: Pakistan says $220 million; the city’s hospitals corporation says it’s “not to exceed . . . over the entire term” — three years — $115,195,752.

In its next hearing, City Council should ask: Why doesn’t Adams provide the full text of every single migrant contract on one website?

The council should also ask: Are would-be contractors required to disclose any fees they may have paid to third parties?

As the Pakistani minister marveled of his deal, “It is really a wonderful contract.”

Maybe not for the rest of us or the migrants.

Nicole Gelinas is a contributing editor to the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal.