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The Office for New Americans (ONA) offers New Americans help with accessing and navigating free services and supports through its grants and contracts with a statewide network of not-for-profit community-based providers. Through nine grant-funded programs, grantees provide referrals to legal service providers and assist New Americans with naturalization applications and citizenship interviews. Auditors identified several areas that ONA should address to improve its ability to connect and provide New Americans with legal services. For example, ONA lacks adequate information to assess and estimate potential unmet need and grantees’ ability and capacity to meet it. Auditors also found limitations in the quarterly reports that ONA requires from grantees that make them difficult to use and compare, as well as inconsistencies in grantees’ reported numbers that represent potential inaccuracies and/or lack of understanding about how to report their activity.
New York City Administration for Children’s Services & New York City Department of Youth and Community Development – Identifying, Reporting, and Providing Services for Youth at Risk of Sexual Human Trafficking in New York City (Follow-Up) (2025-F-14)
The 2014 federal Preventing Sex Trafficking and Strengthening Families Act requires the screening of children within the child welfare system for potential sex trafficking, timely reporting of sex trafficking incidents to law enforcement, and data collection on sex-trafficked and at-risk youth. A prior audit, issued in June 2022, examined whether New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) and Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD) identify, report on, and provide services for victims of child sex trafficking and those at risk of child sex trafficking. The audit found that ACS officials failed to support that they ensured staff and providers screened children to identify sex-trafficked victims or at-risk youth, and that DYCD does not have procedures requiring its providers to screen youth for indicators of trafficking. ACS and DYCD officials have made limited progress in addressing the issues identified in the original audit report. Of the initial report’s nine audit recommendations, two (addressed to DYCD) were implemented, three (two addressed to ACS and one to DYCD) were partially implemented, and four were not implemented (two addressed to each ACS and DYCD).
State Education Department – English Language Learners Programs (Follow-Up) (2025-F-28)
School districts are required to provide English as a New Language (ENL) service to all eligible English Language Leaners (ELLs) and are required to make Bilingual Education (BE) programs available in all home languages spoken by 20 or more ELLs of the same grade and home language districtwide. A prior audit, issued in September 2024, examined whether the State Education Department (SED) is adequately overseeing whether school districts are providing services to ELLs as required. The audit found school districts lacked BE programs and certified BE teachers, could not consistently provide sufficient documentation to support that ELLs completed the identification process and received required ENL services, and did not always submit accurate data to the Student Information Repository System or share information regarding ELL transfer students. SED officials have made significant progress in addressing the issues identified in the original audit report. All seven of the initial report’s audit recommendations were implemented.
State Education Department (Preschool Special Education Audit Initiative) – William T. Dillon Child Study Center at St. Joseph’s University, New York: Compliance With the Reimbursable Cost Manual (2024-S-21)
William T. Dillon Child Study Center (Dillon Center) at St. Joseph’s University, New York is a New York City-based organization authorized by the State Education Department (SED) to provide Integrated Special Class education services to children with disabilities who are between the ages of 3 and 5 years (referred to as SED preschool cost-based programs). For the audit scope, Dillon Center reported approximately $1.3 million in reimbursable costs for the SED preschool cost-based programs. Auditors identified $392,884 in reported costs that did not comply with requirements.
Olympic Regional Development Authority – Security Over Critical Payment Systems (2025-S-23)
The New York State Olympic Regional Development Authority’s (ORDA) mission is to bring economic and social benefits to the Adirondacks and Catskills by managing venues that offer recreational and athletic opportunities. ORDA is subject to New York State Office of Information Technology Services policies and standards. To process credit cards, ORDA must follow the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). Auditors identified areas where ORDA could improve its overall governance of information technology, compliance with PCI DSS requirements, and certain security controls in place to minimize the various risks associated with unauthorized access to its systems and data, and communicated the details of these findings in a confidential report to ORDA officials.
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