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The New York City Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DoITT) has effectively developed and implemented ACCESS NYC, according to an audit released today by New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr.

DoITT, however, has not ensured that ACCESS NYC has been made fully accessible to foreign language-speaking New Yorkers as the City announced would be available.

“Last fall, the City promised online access to government services through ACCESS NYC and has successfully given New Yorkers a private, easy way to learn what is available to them,” Thompson said.

DoITT oversees the City’s use of its existing and emerging technologies in government operations and its delivery of services to the public. In October 2006, the Mayor announced online access to government services through ACCESS NYC, an online screening tool that supports 21 government programs and enables New Yorkers to learn about the benefits and programs for which they may be eligible.

It also was announced that ACCESS NYC would be available to New Yorkers in Spanish, Traditional Mandarin Chinese, Arabic, Haitian-Creole, Korean, and Russian. DoITT was charged with the responsibility to develop and implement ACCESS NYC. As of November 2006, $5.7 million had been spent on ACCESS NYC.

Thompson’s audit - which can be viewed at www.comptroller.nyc.gov - analyzed whether ACCESS NYC meets overall goals as stated in the system justification, meets initial business and system requirements, and functions reliably, and information recorded in the database is accurate and secure from unauthorized access. Audit fieldwork was conducted between September 2006 and January 2007.

The audit’s main findings are as follows:

• ACCESS NYC is operational and meets initial business and system requirements;
  
  
• Development and implementation of the system met specifications, was on schedule, and was delivered within projected costs;
  
  
• The system integrator, when developing the system, followed a formal systems development methodology;
  
  
• As designed, ACCESS NYC allows for enhancement with additional features to augment the existing health/benefit programs; however, those plans are only in the planning stage;
  
  
• ACCESS NYC functions reliably and retains user information within a secured environment; 
  
  
• The financial calculators, using the qualifying income level for determining benefits, were successfully accepting or rejecting users’ eligibility for the Food Stamps and Healthy NY programs, two programs tested to ensure that the calculators were correct; and,  
  
  
• Foreign language users are redirected from the web links to English only information, making the foreign language feature of minimal benefit to certain users.

After reviewing the web pages in each of the foreign languages, auditors found that the foreign language feature programs perform as designed. However, beyond the initial web pages in any one of the selected six foreign languages, when a user clicks to get more information the user is redirected to a web page in English.

Since other agencies control the information on those redirected web pages, foreign language information is not always integrated into ACCESS NYC. Although DoITT has limited control over information, as project manager of the development of ACCESS NYC, DoITT is responsible for ensuring that all facets of the system are completed and fully integrated.

“The City has not fully kept its promise to provide online services to foreign language-speaking New Yorkers,” Thompson said. “New Yorkers who speak Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, Arabic, Haitian-Creole, Korean, and Russian still are waiting for the City to provide better online services.”

As a result of the findings, Thompson recommended that DoITT work with those agencies responsible to translate the source information into each language available in ACCESS NYC.

In its response, DoITT agreed with the audit finding concerning foreign language users being redirected from the web links to only the English language information and noted in its response that “though ACCESS NYC is in full compliance, other agencies are still in the process of translating their agency information in the required six foreign languages.”

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