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The New York City Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD) needs to improve its oversight of its immigrant services contracts, according to an audit released today by New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr.

“Immigrants make up two-thirds of our City’s population,” Thompson said. “The Department of Youth and Community Development has the responsibility of providing services to this important population. While DYCD has been following established guidelines, it needs to enhance its management of services that are provided.”

Created in 1996, DYCD provides services and support to immigrants so they can become more self-sufficient, strengthen their family life, improve their living conditions, and become naturalized citizens. DYCD awards contracts to community-based organizations throughout the five boroughs to accomplish its mission. DYCD awarded 27 contracts to various organizations as part of an Immigrant Special Initiative (ISI) to provide services in one or more of the following services areas: Legal Assistance, Immigrant Women, Immigrant Youth Development, and Legal Services for Undocumented Youth in the Foster Care System.

DYCD’s Office of Immigrant Initiatives conducts monitoring of the community-based organizations’ performance under the ISI contracts and provides them with technical assistance to ensure proper completion and submission of quarterly reports, and provides support to ensure that program participants are receiving quality services and achieve the target outcome. The contracts ran from January 1, 2005 through June 30, 2007 and totaled $6,497,289.

Thompson’s audit - which can be viewed at www.comptroller.nyc.gov - analyzed whether
DYCD is adequately overseeing its ISI contracts. The audit included a sample of five registered contracts that covered the period from January 1, 2005 through December 31, 2006.

The audit’s main findings are as follows:

• Although DYCD has procedures in place to ensure that organizations are aware of the documentation necessary to track program participants and the services provided, there is no adequate control to ensure that the organizations submit the required reports detailing contract activity, and that the data in those reports is accurate.

After two searches, DYCD was able to provide 55 of the 76 required reports for the test period, consisting of 22 Quarterly Registration Forms (QRFs) and 33 Program Summary Forms (PSFs). A review of the QRFs revealed a number of mathematical and reporting errors. For example, one organization reported that it had 51 enrollees, but its detailed breakdown contained only 37 enrollees and another organization submitted a partially completed QRF without enrollee data in 11 out of the 17 reporting categories.

Contract managers monitor the organizations and evaluate them for program effectiveness, administration, program record-keeping, physical environment, and reporting. Auditors, however, found that contract managers do not verify PSFs and when auditors reviewed a sample found inaccurate information. Specifically, program participant progress was not properly transferred and recorded from the contract manager’s Master Tracking Form to the PSF. For example, one organization reported on its PSF that 25 participants had achieved the performance outcome, but the auditors’ review revealed that in actuality only one participant had achieved the outcome.

• An unannounced visit by DYCD employees who did not reveal their true identities revealed that an organization was dissuading eligible candidates from participating in the program. The organization felt that it did not have the capacity to increase the number of participants and, as a result, the contract was reassigned to a different provider. In spite of this failure to perform as required, DYCD did not complete performance evaluation as required by the City’s Procurement Policy Procurement Board rules. By DYCD failing to perform the evaluation, the organization’s inability to fulfill its contract obligations was not recorded and other City agencies will not have access to this information when considering the organization for future contracts.

• DCYD does not have a mechanism in place to inform clients that DYCD is the oversight agency that will investigate and resolve their complaints. Given that the program participants are from a vulnerable population, it is imperative that DYCD implement a process for program participants to anonymously, or otherwise, bring their complaints or concerns to DYCD’s attention.

As a result of the audit’s findings, Thompson recommended that DYCD:

• Increase its efforts in reaching out to community-based organizations to encourage timely submission of quarterly reports;
• Continue to ensure detection of inaccuracies in quarterly reports and implement effective procedures to aid organizations in the completion of those reports;
• Implement new procedures that will aid outcome specialists and contract managers in verifying the data submitted by organizations; and,
• Ensure that future ISI contracts include a clause whereby contractors are required to post contact information in various languages for complaint handling and resolution.

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