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NEWS from the Office of the New York State Comptroller
Contact: Press Office 518-474-4015

State Comptroller DiNapoli Releases Audits

December 15, 2017

New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli announced today the following audits and examinations have been issued:

Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC): Collection and Use of Oil Spill Funds (Follow-Up) (2017-F-13)

An initial audit report issued in August 2015 determined that there were weaknesses in DEC's oversight of Major Oil Storage Facilities (MOSFs) reporting and facility registration, as well as a lack of facility data analysis to identify and correct discrepancies. In a follow-up, auditors found DEC officials have made significant progress in correcting the problems identified in the initial report. The initial report's four recommendations were implemented.

Department of Health: Medicaid Claims Processing Activity October 1, 2016 Through March 31, 2017 (2016-S-66)

Auditors identified approximately $12.4 million in improper Medicaid payments, including $4.58 million in overpayments for long-stay inpatient claims that were billed at higher levels of care than what was allowed; $2.9 million in overpayments for Comprehensive Psychiatric Emergency Program claims that were billed in excess of permitted limits; and $1.4 million in overpayments for claims that were billed with incorrect information pertaining to other health insurance coverage that recipients had. By the end of the audit fieldwork, about $6.3 million of the overpayments had been recovered.

Department of Health (DOH): Appropriateness of Medicaid Eligibility Determined by the New York State of Health System (NYSOH) (Follow-Up) (2017-F-4)

An initial audit report released in October 2015 found flaws in NYSOH's eligibility process that resulted in overpayments of about $3.4 million due to enrollments of deceased individuals and continued coverage for individuals who died after enrollment; multiple Client Identification Numbers (CINs) issued to individual recipients; and unreasonably high numbers of CINs issued for expected multiple births per pregnancy. In a follow-up, auditors found DOH made certain improvements to NYSOH and most of the overpayments caused by the enrollment of deceased individuals were recouped. However, further actions are still needed.

Office of Information Technology Services (ITS): Disaster Recovery Planning (2016-S-97)

Auditors found ITS has made some efforts toward disaster recovery planning; however, there is not a complete, functional, and tested disaster recovery plan that covers all aspects of its operations, including the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CSNE) data center and the centralized IT services it provides to the 46 executive agencies. ITS is working on completing a disaster recovery plan for the CNSE data center and anticipates it will be done in late 2018.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority: Long Island Rail Road - Utilization of the Arch Street Yard and Shop Facility (2016-S-78)

Auditors found the facility was never used as intended for the acceptance and inspection of certain train cars. Moreover, except for occasional use of the wheel truing equipment to round off flat spots on rail car wheels, the facility was also not used for periodic inspections or repairs. Since its construction in December 2004, the facility has undergone periods when it was vacant (for over 3.5 years), leased to a vendor to make warranty repairs, and licensed twice; once as a parking lot to accommodate a tenant displaced from an MTA project, and once to a contractor to perform modifications on Metro-North Railroad rail cars. The LIRR incurred costs of $2.43 million to maintain and secure the facility from January 1, 2013 to June 30, 2016.

New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development: Vacancies at the Clinton Towers Mitchell-Lama Housing Development (2017-N-1)

Vacant apartments at Clinton Towers were often not rented in a timely manner. Auditors found that for the period January 2012 through March 2017, an average of 13 apartments each month had been vacant for over 60 days, resulting in an estimated $740,000 in lost rental revenue. On March 31, 2017, 15 apartments at Clinton Towers had been vacant for more than 60 days, even though there were over 9,000 applicants on the external waiting lists, resulting in approximately $78,000 in lost rental revenue. Eleven of these apartments were vacant for more than six months, including three that had been vacant for more than a year.

State Education Department (SED): The New Interdisciplinary School (NIS), Compliance with the Reimbursable Cost Manual (2017-S-20)

NIS is a not-for-profit special education provider located in Suffolk County providing preschool special education services to children with disabilities who are between three and five years of age. For the two fiscal years ended June 30, 2014 and 2015, auditors identified $119,752 in ineligible costs that NIS reported for state reimbursement. The ineligible costs included: $83,192 in personal service costs and $36,560 in other than personal service costs.