Department of Labor

Information Systems for Reporting Work Participation Data (Follow-Up Review)

As a result of welfare reform legislation, most public assistance recipients must participate in a minimum number of hours of work or work-related activities to maintain their full benefits. The Department of Labor supervises local district administration of employment and training programs for public assistance recipients, and collects work participation data outside New York City. In our prior audit report 99-S-9, we examined the information systems used by the Department for tracking and reporting work participation data for public assistance recipients. We found that certain improvements were needed, as the Department’s systems did not contain data on the recipients’ actual work hours, did not allow retroactive corrections to the data, and did not provide aggregate data by individual participant. Improvements were also needed in the timeliness and accuracy of the reports sent by the Department to the local districts for use in tracking work participation data. In our follow-up review, we found that most of the recommendations contained in our prior report had been implemented by the Department.

For a complete copy of Report 2001-F-68 click here.
For a copy of the 90-day response click here.