Bart Schwartz, the independent monitor appointed nearly five years ago to push for reforms to the troubled New York City Housing Authority, will end his tenure in February and be replaced by an international law firm, Jenner & Block, THE CITY has learned.

Schwartz and his consulting company, Guidepost Solutions, began work in February 2019 following an agreement between NYCHA, then-Mayor Bill de Blasio, the federal housing agency and the Manhattan U.S. Attorney to confront years of neglect and mismanagement endured by public housing tenants.

The goal was for NYCHA to attain substantial improvement of apartment living conditions within five years, but earlier this year it became apparent the agency — the biggest public housing authority in the nation, with more than 400,000 residents — had not reached required milestones. The U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) and federal prosecutors then moved to extend the monitorship for another five years.

In May, Schwartz and Guidepost applied to continue their work. But HUD, the Manhattan U.S. Attorney and the city Law Department picked another firm, Jenner & Block, THE CITY was informed Monday.

Under an arrangement between all the government stakeholders, two Jenner & Block partners overseeing the monitorship will offer their services for free, but the firm will charge the city for its services and any consultants they hire, city officials confirmed.

“While we prefer this funding model, we don’t anticipate that the overall budget will decrease significantly,” a spokesperson for the Law Department told THE CITY.

“We are pleased to be completing on Feb. 29, 2024 our five-year NYCHA monitorship under the HUD agreement,” Montieth Illingworth, a spokesperson for Guidepost, said Tuesday. “Our final report will detail the work we have done to assist NYCHA in improving its delivery of services to the residents.”

Jenner & Block did not respond to a request for comment. NYCHA officials declined to comment on the new arrangement.

Guidepost inked a five-year contract with the city Law Department to be paid up to $74.4 million, and as of this month had received $58.8 million. A spokesperson for the Law Department 

The 2019 agreement required that the monitor create a blueprint to restructure NYCHA’s management, which ultimately resulted in the job of NYCHA CEO and board chair being split into two jobs, with the chair becoming a voluntary position.

It also set up several expected milestones to address specific problems within a reasonable time period. That included cleaning up toxic mold, eradicating lead paint in apartments with young children, replacing aging heating systems subject to repeat outages and upgrading elevator systems that repeatedly fail.

Since June 2019, the monitor has issued 13 quarterly reports, often singling out NYCHA management for failing to reach stated goals. Some of the milestones fell by the wayside due to the pandemic, and by this year the achievements were a mixed bag.

Pushed by the monitor, NYCHA greatly expanded the number of apartments targeted for lead paint inspection and abatement, and by this fall managed to get the job finished for tens of thousands of units.

NYCHA also was able to speed up the time it takes to clean up mold in thousands of apartments, in part due to the monitor’s oversight but also due to NYCHA’s continued concerns surfaced about poor air circulation in apartments during the pandemic, NYCHA managed to clear out clogged air ducts and replace fans, upgrades that greatly improved circulation and reduced the spread of mold in bathrooms and kitchens.

Illingworth listed accomplishments that include “the reduction of mold complaints by over 50%, a system in place to identify and protect children under 6 from lead exposure, air ducts not cleaned for 60 years have been cleaned and NYCHA has learned to apply modern analytic methods which result in greater productivity without additional cost.”

On the other hand, the size of the typical repair request backlog failing elevators and faltering boilers — problems that the new firm will have to confront.