Scott Stringer: Sandy Contractors Soaked the City
Will Bredderman
Comptroller Scott Stringer announced today that an audit of contracts the Department of Homeless Services handed out in the wake of Hurricane Sandy discovered that the agency had doled out $19.9 million in funds with little or no oversight.
Mr. Stringer said his investigation into the DHS’ finances found that the agency had given a virtual blank check to the 20 private contractors charged with assisting storm-slammed New Yorkers—paying them for work not included or beyond the term of their contracts and not requiring hard documentation of expenditures or performing inspections. In the eight contracts his office reviewed, Mr. Stringer said he found at least $30,000 had been wasted.
“The mismanagement of contracts by the Department of Homeless Services after Superstorm Sandy made the city vulnerable to waste, fraud and abuse,” Mr. Stringer said at a press conference in Park Slope, Brooklyn on the same day Mayor Bill de Blasio made his own Sandy-related announcement.
The contracts in question ranged from helping provide shelter to displaced residents to assistance signing up for public benefits to home repair to medical attention—though the agency allegedly failed to determine if the services were ever rendered. Mr. Stringer said the agency blamed the lack of attention paid on the state of emergency—an answer the comptroller called unacceptable.
Read more at http://observer.com/2014/07/scott-stringer-sandy-contractors-soaked-the-city/#ixzz37lPanTbW