State Comptroller’s report concludes that Office of Mental Health's “contracting out” for personnel and other services not adequately monitored
Source: Office of the State Comptroller, Audit 2009-S-42
The State Comptroller’s auditors found that the Office of Mental Health (OMH) had 819 state-funded contracts for personal and miscellaneous services during a three-year audit period totaling $61.7 million.
The focus of the audit: Was OMH adequately justifying the need to initially contract out for such services and then periodically reassessing whether such contracts could be deferred, eliminated or reduced. The report indicates that “this was not adequately done.”
A sample of 50 of the 819 Service Contracts was selected for study. The auditors reviewed available documentation to determine whether the need for the services and the decision to contract for services was justified with supporting documentation.
According to the Comptroller’s report, OMH was able to demonstrate that it had formally evaluated and justified the need for only 15 of these 50 contracts totaling $13.5 million. The Department did not produce documentation showing that it formally evaluated the justification for the remaining 35 contracts, which totaled $48.2 million.
Although OMH officials agreed that all of the decisions pertaining to contracting for Services were not documented, they indicated that "this is not a feasible task, as decisions are made at many levels in many forms." OMH said that it believe it had effectively communicated the intent of the relevant budget bulletins to all OMH divisions and facilities. The auditors, in contrast, said they “did not find sufficient evidence that OMH had contracted out only when there was a clearly documented need for the services.”
The contracts involved providing for mental health services, information technology, maintenance, and security services.
The full text of the Comptroller’s report is posted on the Internet at:
http://osc.state.ny.us/audits/allaudits/093010/09s42.pdf
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