Strauber testified at a Council budget hearing in March that those factors have led to a slower pace of work and attention diverted more to administrative tasks than investigations.Ĭouncil Member Gale Brewer, a Manhattan Democrat who chairs the Council’s oversight and investigations committee, has spent months advocating for funding boosts for oversight agencies like DOI and urging the administration to quickly fill vacancies. Only one agency pointed to a specific instance of suspected theft (valued at $5,000 or less) that agency management said could have been avoided if there was sufficient staffing.ĭOI itself has been struggling with staffing and budget cuts as its workload has increased. Those agencies reported “reductions in oversight, auditing, and internal control functions,” according to the report, as well as risks to anti-corruption activities because of “delays, lowered capacity, inexperienced staff, and burnout.” In response, agencies said they have had to rearrange staff roles, take longer to complete certain tasks, and even forego new programs to monitor or prevent corruption. “These challenges, should they continue, could have a long-term negative impact on the City’s anti-corruption efforts and therefore could increase the risks of corruption, fraud, waste, and abuse,” said DOI Commissioner Jocelyn Strauber, in a statement accompanying the report. Of those 64 agencies, 66% reported to DOI that a decrease in their staff was adversely affecting or posing risks to their anti-corruption efforts. The report was based on detailed questionnaires sent to 64 mayoral and non-mayoral city agencies, and covers the period from Octothrough Septem- meaning the final three months of the de Blasio administration and first nine months of the Adams administration. Unlike past reports that focused on corruption issues and agency responses to them, DOI surveyed city agencies on how persisting staffing challenges have affected their efforts to monitor and tackle fraud and waste. There are more than 23,000 budgeted vacancies across city agencies. The New York City Department of Investigation (DOI), the oversight agency that monitors and investigates corruption and other dysfunction at city agencies, released its 2022 Annual Anti-Corruption Report on Monday, pointing to serious risks arising from the city’s ongoing municipal staffing crisis. Two-thirds of New York City government agencies say that difficulties in recruiting and retaining employees have negatively affected their anti-corruption efforts, raising the risk of fraud and waste, according to a new report from a city corruption watchdog. Inside City Hall (photo: William Alatriste/New York City Council)
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