Reports

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in upheaval to the economy and government services. Ulster County needed to address the questions of people and organizations during the pandemic as it related to public health concerns. To address public questions and concerns, Ulster County established a COVID hotline. Despite allocating significant resources to promotion and widening the scope of the Service Center, it still receives few calls. The call volume does not seem to align with the staffing and additional resources being allocated to operate a separate unit of government. This downtime could...

Our audit sought to determine if unemployment claims filed in the name of Ulster County employees were handled in accordance with current law and Ulster County policy. Our audit revealed that the Personnel Department properly identified fraudulent unemployment claims and challenged those claims. In addition, the Personnel Department staff appropriately notified the Sheriff’s Department and the Information Systems Department about the potential unemployment insurance fraud. However, it appears that some employees may not have been notified by the Personnel Department that they were the victims...

Personnel supporting Federal health care programs are a resource critical to the Federal COVID-19 pandemic response efforts. Health care facilities must be prepared for potential personnel shortages and must have plans and processes in place to mitigate these shortages to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and future pandemics. The PRAC will coordinate a review of four Federal health care programs to determine whether these programs, or the providers they reimburse, experienced shortages in health care personnel during the pandemic, the impact of those health care personnel shortages, and strategies used by the Departments to reduce shortages of health care personnel for future pandemics.

This report is a summary of the costs related to responding to the pandemic that the Ulster County Comptroller’s Office was able to aggregate from existing reported financial and personnel data for 2020. The County continues to incur substantial costs in the current year 2021, many of which are offset by pandemic related revenue streams, such as the cost of operating vaccination clinics. We have reviewed the 2020 expenditures to assist in both improving the accounting for these costs and potentially identifying and obtaining revenues to offset these costs.

Federal agencies were allocated more than $5 trillion in pandemic response funding to be disbursed to the public and to state and local governments, where a state or local government could have received pandemic response funds from multiple federal programs to improve the overall pandemic response in their communities. Access to information about the total amount of funds received, the purpose of those funds, and the progress made toward achieving the program goals and objectives is not always centralized and can be difficult for the public to track down or may not even be available to the public. The PRAC will conduct impact case studies at 6 different locations and seek to identify the federal pandemic response funds provided to the 6 locations and the purpose of those funds, and to determine if the federal program spending aligned with the intended goals and objectives. The 6 locations identified for this project include: Springfield, Massachusetts; Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; Marion County, Georgia; Sheridan County, Nebraska; White Earth Indian Nation, Minnesota; and Jicarilla Apache Nation, New Mexico.

The Comptroller’s Office surveyed Ulster residents on potential uses of the American Rescue Plan funds. The survey was promoted on social media from March 24 through May 3, 2021, and in electronic newsletters to the Comptroller’s Office distribution lists. Two hundred and twelve people responded. Respondents were provided with 14 potential options for the use of funds and asked to grade each on a score of 1 to 10.

The PRAC and pandemic OIGs identified the possibility of recipients receiving funding from multiple federal programs for the same purpose ( multi-dipping When a recipient receives money from multiple federal sources and uses it for the same purpose, this could be an indication of multi-dipping. ) as a high risk area. This project will focus on funds received by tribal governments, and result in an information brief that identifies programs where multi-dipping When a recipient receives money from multiple federal sources and uses it for the same purpose, this could be an indication of multi-dipping. has occurred in CARES Act programs allowing us to identify and scope the magnitude of the risk.