NYC's 'shoddy oversight' wastes 'millions of taxpayer dollars' on unused hotel rooms, uneaten food for illegal aliens: Audit

New York City Comptroller Brad Lander (D) released an audit Tuesday that accused Mayor Eric Adams' (D) administration of "shoddy oversight" of a contract the city held with Rapid Reliable Testing NY LLC, also referred to as DocGo.

The Adams administration signed a $432 million contract with the company to provide illegal aliens residing in the city with services, including shelter, accommodations, and food.

'Infestation, inedible food, and inadequate service.'

Lander, who recently launched a mayoral bid to push Adams out of office, stated that an audit conducted by a group of independent auditors uncovered "mismanagement" of the contract. He noted that the Department of Housing Prevention & Development "failed to conduct sufficient oversight," ultimately costing "taxpayers millions of dollars." The audit alleged that HPD conducted "poor quality" invoice reviews.

"A detailed review of invoices presented for the first two months of the contract found that nearly 80% of payments—$11 million of $13.8 million paid—were unsupported and should be recouped," Lander's office reported.

After a review of the first two months of the no-bid emergency contract, DocGo received $1.7 million in taxpayer funds for nearly 10,000 hotel rooms for illegal immigrants that sat vacant. Roughly 67% of the funds it received during that same period were paid to "unauthorized subcontractors" that were not reviewed by HPD.

"80% of the 189 hotel rooms auditors visited in New York City and upstate had at least one deficiency, and a small number posed serious health and safety hazards," the comptroller's report read. Some of the deficiencies or health hazards included mold, water damage, bugs, and pests as well as the lack of a microwave and/or refrigeration.

"Our detailed investigation into DocGo invoices and properties found a wide range of fiscal mismanagement and shoddy oversight—from DocGo overpaying security subcontractors by $2 million, skimming off over $400,000 in overhead for almost 10,000 unused hotels rooms, and failing to ensure promised social and casework services. Each misstep reveals that the Administration failed to adequately vet the company or oversee their work," Lander said.

Lander referred to the hotels' conditions and limited access to case workers as "nothing short of cruelty."

"Thousands of asylum seekers travelled thousands of miles to seek safety and support as they start their new lives and instead were met with infestation, inedible food, and inadequate services. Our audit unearthed what we already suspected—that DocGo never should have gotten into the business of housing asylum seekers," Lander stated.

A spokesperson for Adams' administration told the New York Post that Lander and his office were being "nitpick[y]" during an "unprecedented" crisis.

"At the height of an unprecedented international humanitarian crisis, workers from across the city government were called upon to take swift, decisive action to meet this defining moment with compassion and care for others," the spokesperson stated. "As mothers needed baby formula and health care workers needed supplies, we put people's wellbeing before paperwork."

"The comptroller can nitpick the first two months of an emergency contract over a year after the fact and long after new safeguards were put in place, but he cannot claim to have saved a single migrant family from sleeping on the streets," the spokesperson continued. "We will continue to pay our partners for the work they do on behalf of the city, particularly amidst a humanitarian crisis."

HPD spokesperson Ilana Maier told the Post, "The report egregiously mischaracterizes HPD memos and fails to acknowledge facts that don't reinforce their politically convenient narrative."

"HPD staff and its vendors worked around the clock, seven days a week, to make sure that the thousands of people suddenly on the city's doorstep were safe, sheltered, and fed. When HPD made decisions quickly, it made them compassionately; and when procedures didn't yet exist and documentation wasn't available in the moment, HPD exercised good judgment rather than risking lives for bureaucratic steps," Maier added.

DocGo stated, in part, that it "stand[s] by the quality of our program."

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