Inside City Hall (photo: William Alatriste/New York City Council)

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.

The New York City Department of Investigation (DOI), the oversight agency that monitors and investigates corruption and other dysfunction at city agencies, released its ...

City Council Member Gale Brewer (photo: Emil Cohen/NYC Council Media Unit)

The New York City Department of Investigation has lost 86 budgeted positions, 21% of its staff, in the last two fiscal years, and is being hit with further vacancy reductions in Mayor Eric Adams’ proposed $102.7 billion preliminary budget for 2024. Those cuts threaten to undermine the agency’s work to root out waste, fraud, and abuse in city government, as it continues to handle an unchanged workload with fewer resources.

The Department of Investigation (DOI) is a mayoral agency with law enforcement powers meant to be

Payments to nonprofit providers (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)

Nonprofits that provide essential city services are in crisis. New York City government’s failure to pay nonprofits on time for the vital work they are doing for the city is jeopardizing the existence of these critical organizations that New Yorkers – especially the poorest and most vulnerable – rely upon. 

In the past two weeks there has been reporting that two venerable nonprofits —

Mayor Adams holds a cabinet meeting (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)

New York City Department of Investigation Commissioner Jocelyn Strauber critiqued Mayor Eric Adams' proposed cuts to her agency's budget Tuesday in testimony before the New York City Council, and called for a partial restoration of funds for what she said are "necessary" enhancements.

Officials at the DOI, which investigates city government corruption, estimate the department would, baed on the mayor’s spending plan, see a reduction in funding of approximately $2 million in its Fiscal Year 2023 budget even after the agency makes

The Mayor and PC Shea (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)

Last month, New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a groundbreaking lawsuit against the City and the NYPD “to end the pervasive use of excessive force and false arrests by the NYPD against New Yorkers in suppressing overwhelmingly peaceful protests.” The suit was in response to the NYPD’s use of force at last summer’s racial justice protests. The complaint alleges multiple examples of excessive force, and presents a detailed critique of the NYPD’s handling of both the summer protests

NYPD officers; the department remains under multiple investigations (photo: Edwin J. Torres/Mayor's Office)

The New York City Department of Investigation (DOI) and Law Department have missed the August 31 benchmark set by Mayor Bill de Blasio to submit a final report in their joint investigation into the NYPD's response to summer protests that broke out in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.

Officers' frequently violent engagement with demonstrators marching against police racism and brutality led to hundreds of allegations

NYPD IG Eure, second from left (photo: @OIGNYPD)

During our national coronavirus crisis, two Inspectors General stories were reported – one federal, one New York City – concerning how IGs exercised their statutory duty. No doubt the stories’ significance was lost because our attention is diverted. But they’re important, and telling.

On April 3, President Donald Trump gutted the Inspector General Act of 1978 when he proclaimed “You’re fired!” Michael Atkinson, Inspector General, Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Forty-two years ago,

Council Member Ritchie Torres (photo: John McCarten/City Council)

The New York City Department of Investigation, a watchdog agency that monitors corruption and more broadly evaluates the functioning of city agencies, will launch a database next month to track each and every reform recommendation it makes, going back to 2014 when Mayor Bill de Blasio took office, and how agencies are complying with them.

Every year, DOI issues hundreds, if not thousands, of Policy and Procedure Recommendations (PPRs) to city agencies to help them eliminate inefficiencies and

(photo: John McCarten/City Council)

The Department of Investigation, an independent city agency that monitors and investigates government corruption, waste, and mismanagement, has yet to complete thousands of background checks on workers currently employed in city government. At a hearing of the City Council’s Committee on Oversight and Investigations on Monday, DOI Commissioner Margaret Garnett sought to explain why the agency had fallen behind and assured Council members that the problem would not carry on into the future.

As of Friday,

(photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)

Last week the City of Newark sued New York City over New York’s placement of more than a thousand homeless individuals and families in Newark, through the city’s Special One Time Assistance (SOTA) program. Under the program, New York City employed private brokers to find homes for the families in New Jersey and elsewhere, and, without checking to see if the homes were habitable, paid a full year’s rent in advance and left families to live there. The result was thousands of families sent out of the city into homes that were

Mayor de Blasio (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)

In the five years following Eric Garner’s death at the hands of then-NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo, Mayor Bill de Blasio has repeatedly fallen back on the same argument to defend the police department when questions are raised about apparent incidents of excessive force or other misconduct by officers: deescalation training.

“[T]he goal is always to de-escalate,” the mayor said at a news conference on crime statistics on November 6, addressing a recent “chaotic” incident on a

DOI Commissioner Margaret Garnett (photo: John McCarten/City Council)

The Department of Investigation, a watchdog agency tasked with rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse in city government, issues hundreds of recommendations each year, urging other city agencies to reform their procedures and enhance the services they provide. It’s not always apparent to the general public, or even elected officials, whether agencies comply with those suggestions, which are typically based on extensive investigations.

But the department has now promised a new

(photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

Last week the federal NYCHA monitor issued his first quarterly report. It was a scathing indictment of the agency, describing “putrid liquid” spilling into a laundry room and rats scurrying through a 14-floor high garbage compactor. As one resident explained, “we are hostages in our own homes at night…due to rats that are the size of cats.”

But as disturbing as these examples are, the most important finding was less graphic but ultimately more dangerous:  A systemic culture of failing to take

(photo: Edwin J. Torres/ Mayoral Photography Office)

In January, the state Joint Commission on Public Ethics, a governmental watchdog agency, revealed that it had held a closed-door vote on a potential ethics investigation into a former top aide to Governor Andrew Cuomo. The aide, Joe Percoco, was convicted on federal corruption charges in a highly publicized trial that also laid bare work he had done from his executive chamber office while on leave to work

(photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography)

In the last three years, Mayor Bill de Blasio has been investigated by law enforcement and oversight entities at the city, state, and federal levels for soliciting donations from people seeking favors from his administration. While several of the investigations have concluded without chargers, investigators and others have criticized the mayor for shirking conflicts of interest and campaign finance rules.

In the case of the city investigation, conducted by the Department of Investigation (DOI) and referred to the

Margaret Garnett (photo via City Hall)

Margaret Garnett, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s pick to replace recently fired Department of Investigation Commissioner Mark Peters, received praise from City Council Members and the support of City Council Speaker Corey Johnson at a Monday hearing on her nomination. Currently serving as the Executive Deputy Attorney General for Criminal Justice in the New York State Attorney General’s office, Garnett’s nomination hearing came amid significant controversy over de Blasio’s firing of Peters, ...

Mark Peters (photo: William Alatriste/City Council)

Department of Investigation Commissioner Mark Peters, in his final days on the job after Mayor Bill de Blasio fired him on Friday, refuted the mayor’s stated reasons for the termination in a bluntly worded letter sent Monday to City Council Speaker Corey Johnson and Council Member Ritchie Torres who chairs the Committee on Oversight and Investigations, and released to the news media (read the full letter below).

Peters, who was once treasurer to de Blasio’s first mayoral campaign, has had a tense

Commissioner Peters at a press conference (photo: @NYC_DOI)

It took Mayor Bill de Blasio and the New York City Police Department two years to accept what the city’s Department of Investigation had uncovered in 2015, DOI Commissioner Mark Peters said recently: that quality-of-life crime enforcement, like marijuana arrests, does little to reduce violent crime and that these arrests disproportionately affect people of color.

When the DOI came out with the report detailing these findings, it experienced pushback from the mayor, who publicly questioned the

What's The [Data] Point? Episode 41 -- 402, with DOI Commissioner Mark Peters [You can download What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including on iTunes]

City Council Evaluates Progress of NYPD Inspector General

Council Member Vincent Gentile (photo: William Alatriste/City Council)

The City Council’s Committee on Oversight and Investigations held a hearing on Monday to discuss three bills, including one which would require the Department of Investigation to conduct an annual public outreach campaign to inform New Yorkers about how to identify corruption and use the resources of the DOI to file corruption complaints.

The Department of Investigation, the city’s independent watchdog agency, is responsible for investigating wrongdoing by city agencies, officers, elected

DOI Commissioner Mark Peters (photo: @DOInews)

At a City Council preliminary budget hearing on Thursday, Department of Investigation Commissioner Mark Peters laid out new funding and staffing needs for his agency, which is facing a $5 million proposed reduction in its fiscal year 2018 allocation by Mayor Bill de Blasio.

The proposed preliminary budget for the Department of Investigation (DOI), the watchdog body that monitors and probes public corruption and other wrongdoing at 45 city agencies, is $41.7 million, down from

Department of Investigation ad (photo via DOI)

Formed in the 1870s, the city’s Department of Investigation (DOI) is a law enforcement agency tasked with keeping city government honest. Run well, DOI acts as a safeguard against fraud, abuse, and neglect in municipal government, an advocate for taxpayers, and an enforcer of ethics.

In 2013, then Mayor Michael Bloomberg described the agency as a "vigilant watchdog," and a

Mayor de Blasio (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

A bureaucratic procedure gone wrong has turned out to be a major headache for Mayor Bill de Blasio that refuses to go away. Even after two recent and damning investigative reports, one city agency maintains its investigation is "ongoing" given newly turned over information and the state Attorney General is still looking into the matter.

The lifting of deed restrictions on Rivington House, a nursing home on the Lower East Side of Manhattan,

Mayor de Blasio & First Deputy Mayor Shorris in 2013 (photo: @NYCTransition)

Two recent reports on City Hall’s role in the questionable lifting of deed restrictions on a nursing home property issued scathing indictments of both process and personnel in the de Blasio administration. They revealed mismanagement and miscommunication that belies Mayor Bill de Blasio’s own attempts to portray City Hall and its agencies as well-oiled machines that deliver swift and efficient services to the people of New York.