Audits and examination reports issued during the week ending March 17, 2018 by NYS Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli
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Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS): Financial Oversight of the Advantage After School Program (2016-S-39)
OCFS has some appropriate controls to limit program contract spending, including a maximum cost per child of $1,375 and a maximum allowable contract budget, which is calculated by multiplying providers’ maximum average daily attendance (MADA) by the $1,375 maximum per child. OCFS reimbursements to program providers did not exceed the maximum contract budget. However, there is a risk that providers can exceed the maximum cost per child if they serve significantly fewer children than their MADA but do not reduce their expenditures proportionally.
City University of New York (CUNY): Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC): Controls Over Bank Accounts (Follow-Up) (2015-S-93)
CUNY Central officials provided auditors a list of 23 bank accounts that they were aware of at BMCC. Seven of BMCC’s accounts were opened after CUNY’s bank authorization policy was established in 2008. However, CUNY did not have the required notification forms for one of these accounts. Auditors also identified two accounts that were not on CUNY’s list. These findings point to weaknesses in the monitoring of bank accounts, which increase the risk that BMCC personnel could conduct transactions using unauthorized accounts.
Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC): Generic PINs (2017-BSE7-01)
Auditors found DEC’s use of fuel cards does not comply with the Office of General Services’ Fuel Card Services Contract Guidelines, the State Vehicle Use Policy and DEC’s Policies and Procedures. DEC does not have sufficient controls in place to ensure all fuel purchases are appropriate. DEC officials have not implemented a previous comptroller’s recommendation to assign unique PINs to individual employees, consistent with the guidelines.
Department of Health (DOH): Nursing Home Surveillance (Follow-Up) (2017-F-12)
An initial audit issued in February 2016, found DOH generally met its obligations to conduct Standard Health and Complaint surveys of nursing homes in accordance with federal and state requirements, but its enforcement policies and procedures needed to be strengthened to better protect the health and well-being of nursing home residents. In a follow-up report, auditors found DOH officials addressed the problems identified in the initial audit, having implemented all four of the prior audit’s recommendations.
Department of Health: Medicaid Program: Managed Care Organizations (MCOs): Payments to Ineligible Providers (2016-S-59)
During the audit period, the DOH launched efforts to improve its ability to detect and prevent payments by MCOs to ineligible providers. Notwithstanding those efforts, however, auditors identified certain weaknesses that, if properly addressed, could help better detect and prevent improper payments to ineligible providers. Auditors determined MCOs improperly paid $50.3 million during the audit period.
State Education Department (SED): Universal Pre-Kindergarten Program (UPK): Monitoring of Health and Safety Requirements (Follow-Up) (2017-F-30)
An initial audit report issued in December 2016 found SED did not directly monitor UPK providers for health and safety. Instead, SED relied on the school district operating the UPK program, or the Office of Children and Family Services, to ensure that UPK providers were complying with health and safety requirements. In addition, auditors found a wide disparity in the way UPK providers were being monitored for health and safety. In a follow-up, auditors found SED officials have made some progress in addressing the issues identified in the initial audit.
Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA): New York City Transit: Operational Training and Medical Assessments of Train Crews (2016-S-26)
Auditors found MTA’s New York City Transit unit is not in compliance with the requirements of the Induction Training curriculum established for its train crews. This lack of compliance may be tied to poor outcomes. For instance, all four train operators in the audit sample who had five or more operating incidents during the audit period had a history of failing grades and/or tests and quizzes missing from their training files. Auditors also found: train operators and conductors are not always meeting or completing refresher training requirements; many of their required annual hearing tests were either done late or not at all; train crews not in compliance with medical assessment requirements; and there were inconsistencies with test scoring and file maintenance, including missing test files, ungraded tests, and missing attendance records.
Metropolitan Transportation Authority: Staten Island Railway (SIR): Operational Training and Medical Assessments of Train Crews (2017-S-71)
Auditors found SIR’s records were insufficient to document that training was satisfactorily completed. For a randomly selected sample of conductors who underwent Induction Training during the audit period, 61 percent of test papers were either not graded or missing. In addition, for the randomly selected sample of engineers, 81.7 percent of test papers for those newly hired and 41.7 percent of test papers for those promoted were either not graded or missing. Five of the ten conductors randomly sampled were required to take Book of Rules Refresher Training during the audit period. However, only two of the five had records that supported satisfactory completion of all exams. Auditors found similar results for the Signals Refresher Training, with only two of eight conductors having records to support satisfactory completion. Train crews were also not in compliance with medical assessment requirements.