State of New York Mortgage Agency

Internal Controls Over Financial Operations

The Housing Finance Agency (HFA) and the State of New York Mortgage Agency (SONYMA) are public benefit corporations created to support housing and homeownership programs. Both HFA and SONYMA issue bonds to finance their operations, and also provide staff and administrative support to three other bond-issuing agencies that have no staff of their own (the New York State Project Finance Agency, the State of New York Municipal Bond Bank Agency, and the New York State Tobacco Settlement Financing Corporation). In addition, a sixth agency, the New York State Affordable Housing Corporation, is a subsidiary of HFA, and often works closely with SONYMA. The six agencies are overseen by a single President and Chief Executive Officer, and share a single Finance Office.

We examined the adequacy of the systems of internal control over the six agencies’ financial operations. We found that, on balance, adequate systems of internal control had been established. However, improvements were needed in certain controls relating to employee time and attendance, contract awards, equipment inventories, corporate governance and other financial areas. For example, written policies and procedures had not been developed for the process that was used in setting salaries for more than 30 executives and managers not covered by collective bargaining agreements.

For a complete copy of Report 2004-S-9 click here.