New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli today announced the following State Government Accountability reports have been released.

New York City Department of Social Services – New York City Department of Homeless Services: Oversight of Contract Expenditures of Samaritan Daytop Village, Inc. (Follow-Up) (2025-F-23)

The New York City Department of Homeless Services (DHS), an administrative unit of the New York City Department of Social Services, is responsible for providing transitional housing and services for eligible homeless families and individuals in New York City and for providing fiscal oversight of the homeless shelters. In July 2013, DHS contracted with Samaritan Daytop Village, Inc. (Samaritan), a city-based not-for-profit organization, to provide temporary housing, case management, housing referrals, placement services, and on-site medical and mental health services for men with mental illness at its 160-bed Myrtle Avenue Men’s Shelter for the period from August 2013 to June 2018. DHS is responsible for monitoring its contract with Samaritan to ensure reported costs are allowable, supported, and program related. A prior audit, issued in February 2024, found DHS was not effectively monitoring its contract with Samaritan and identified $566,556 of all reported costs that did not comply with requirements. DHS officials made some progress in addressing the issues identified in the initial audit report, partially implementing five recommendations and not implementing one.

New York City Department of Small Business Services: Facilitated Programs to Assist Small Businesses (2022-N-4)

The New York City Department of Small Business Services (SBS) contracts with outside entities known as Industrial Business Service Providers and Business Solutions Centers to support programs that assist businesses with identifying the best available financial products, working with lenders to package loans, collecting financial documents and completing forms, submitting final loan applications to lenders, following up to ensure disbursement of funds, providing post-financing advisement, and training. The 76 businesses reviewed obtained facilitated loans of $97,363,816; however, SBS does not collect data on the beneficial effects of this financing, such as the creation of new jobs or strengthening of the businesses’ operations. Additionally, SBS does not verify program performance in terms of the number and amount of the facilitated loans. Instead, the program results are self-reported by the vendors.

Department of Health: Maternal Health (Follow-Up) (2025-F-26)

Maternal mortality refers to deaths of pregnant persons during pregnancy or within a year of the end of pregnancy. Severe maternal morbidity is defined as unexpected outcomes of pregnancy, labor, or delivery that result in short- or long-term consequences to a person’s health. To address alarming rates of maternal mortality and morbidity, as well as racial disparities in these rates, New York established the Taskforce on Maternal Mortality and Disparate Racial Outcomes in April 2018, and it produced 10 recommendations. The recommendations required a collaboration between public and private entities, with DOH being a main player in the majority of the recommendations. A prior audit, issued in July 2024, found that while DOH had made progress in addressing the recommendations to improve maternal health, data showed that maternal mortality and morbidity rates in New York State had not decreased since the Taskforce was established in 2018, and the maternal mortality rate had actually increased, along with increasing racial disparities statistics. DOH officials made significant progress in addressing the issues identified in the initial audit report, implementing the report’s one recommendation.

New York City Public Schools: Privacy and Security of Student Data (2023-N-6)

New York City Public Schools (NYCPS) uses Automate the Schools as its main student information system, which standardizes and automates the collecting and reporting of student data. NYCPS maintains and uses students’ personally identifiable information for a variety of educational purposes and is responsible for safeguarding student data and ensuring the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of its information systems. Auditors found gaps in and misalignments of policies relating to data privacy and security, data classification, risk assessment, and backup and recovery. Additionally, NYCPS does not always report breaches or notify affected parties within the required time frames or maintain a comprehensive list of all applications used by each school that would help it better understand its environment, the type of information being stored, and the risks associated with the data.

New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development and New York City Housing Development Corporation: Housing for Seniors (Follow-Up) (2025-F-19)

The New York City (NYC) Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) and NYC Housing Development Corporation (HDC) work together to administer several programs to assist in the development and rehabilitation of housing for senior citizens, including the Senior Affordable Rental Apartments Program (SARA Program), federal Section 202 Supportive Housing for the Elderly Program (Section 202 Program), and HPD’s Senior Citizen Homeowner Assistance Program (SCHAP). A prior audit, issued in July 2023, reviewed a sample of four developments assisted through the SARA Program—HANAC Corona Senior Residence in Queens, Serviam Heights LLC in the Bronx, Victory Plaza in Manhattan, and Woodlawn Senior Living in the Bronx—and one development assisted through the Section 202 Program, Bensonhurst Housing for the Elderly in Brooklyn. Despite the scarcity of affordable housing for seniors, the audit found several instances where senior housing units were left vacant for long periods of time, senior housing units were not always awarded to the correct applicants, and SCHAP requirements were not met. HPD and HDC officials made some progress in addressing the problems identified in the initial audit report. Of the initial report’s six audit recommendations, three (addressed to HDC) were implemented, two (addressed to HPD) were partially implemented, and one (also addressed to HPD) was not implemented.