The Adams administration is under fire following a scathing audit by New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, which reveals significant fiscal mismanagement and a lack of oversight in a $432 million contract intended to provide services to newly arriving migrants. The audit, reported on by the Center Square, scrutinized the no-bid contract with DocGo, a private medical services provider, uncovered millions of dollars in wasted taxpayer funds, sparking controversy and criticism as the city grapples with an ongoing migrant crisis.
According to the report, the contract, which was managed by the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development and expired in May, was marred by a “wide range of fiscal mismanagement and shoddy oversight.” Key findings include the overpayment of security subcontractors by $2 million, skimming off over $400,000 in overhead for nearly 10,000 unused hotel rooms, and the failure to deliver promised social and casework services for the migrants.
Comptroller Lander, who is expected to challenge Mayor Eric Adams in next year’s Democratic mayoral primary, criticized the administration’s handling of the contract. “My office repeatedly sounded the alarm on the Adams Administration’s rush to contract with DocGo, and our audit confirmed that the City’s haphazard management ended up wasting millions of taxpayer dollars on DocGo,” Lander said in a statement. “Each misstep reveals that the Administration failed to adequately vet the company or oversee their work.”
This audit follows an earlier report from Lander’s office highlighting deficiencies in the Adams administration’s emergency contracting practices, which had reached $54 million by the end of November. The previous report pointed to a lack of transparency in the emergency contracting process, raising concerns about potential overpayment and corruption.
In response to the audit, Camille Joseph Varlack, Adams’ chief of staff, defended the administration’s actions during what she described as a chaotic period when the city was faced with an unprecedented influx of asylum seekers arriving on buses from Texas and other border states. Varlack emphasized that the administration prioritized keeping families and children off the streets by negotiating a flat rate of $170 per night for migrant housing, amid what she called price gouging by hotel owners.
“We needed to make sure that people had a safe place to stay. I think that we have demonstrated that we have been able to do that,” Varlack stated during a Tuesday briefing. “We needed to make sure that we had hotel capacity to absorb the folks that were coming in. And we needed to make sure that we locked in a price for the city.”
Varlack also noted that the Adams administration has already implemented many of the changes recommended in a previous audit, which suggested that DocGo was “ill-prepared” to handle the volume of asylum seekers requiring housing and other assistance.
New York Attorney General Letitia James has launched an investigation into allegations that DocGo has been deceiving and threatening migrants while failing to properly vet security officers. This probe is ongoing and adds to the mounting scrutiny of the Adams administration’s handling of the migrant crisis.
Mayor Adams, responding to the criticism, suggested that it is easy for Lander and others to criticize from the sidelines. “It is very comfortable to sit in the bleachers and, you know, just be a detached spectator,” Adams said during the Tuesday briefing. “But when you are running a city as complex as this, you have to be prepared.”
New York City has seen an influx of over 210,000 asylum seekers in the past year, driven by a historic surge of immigration along the U.S.-Mexico border. The city is currently providing housing, food, and other necessities for more than 60,000 migrants across 200 temporary “humanitarian” shelters. Mayor Adams estimates that the city will need to spend $12 billion on migrant services through 2025, as the crisis shows no signs of abating.
