PEF calls on state agency for children and families to account for wasting $9.5M

ALBANY - The state Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) could have saved taxpayers $9.5 million last year if it had cut its dependence on costly private consultants by half and let its own employees do the work, instead. That's the finding of a new report released today by the NYS Public Employees Federation (PEF).

"New Yorkers cannot afford this irresponsible waste of their hard-earned dollars," said PEF President Ken Brynien. "It's high time the state Senate passed bill (A5128-B/S3093A) that would require state agencies to compare costs and use state employees when they can do work more economically then private consultants. Enacting this law, passed previously by the Assembly, would finally begin to bring down the quarter of a billion dollars state agencies are now wasting every year on private consultants.

The report on consultant spending at OCFS is the sixth in a series of such studies PEF has released this spring, aimed at spotlighting wasteful state spending on private consultants.

PEF found OCFS spent $161.7 million on consultants in the state fiscal year that ended March 31, an increase of 30 percent in just eight years.

According to the study, in just the last two years, OCFS hiked its spending on consultants by 19 percent while cutting its own workforce by 11 percent. Last year, the agency paid a private contractor $163 per hour for the services of an information system manager. That's 106 percent more than OCFS pays its own employees to do the work, even when you consider the cost of their pensions and benefits.

OCFS' prime training contractor, the Research Foundation of the State University of New York, has paid its "chief executives" up to $251 an hour for short-term contracts. That's the equivalent of $488,000 a year. On average, the foundation's consultants with the title chief executive are paid $157 per hour, or the equivalent of more than $307,500 a year. That's more than 50 percent higher than OCFS pays its own commissioner.

A Sources and Methodology Appendix for this report is also available

PEF Members and Leaders testify on dangers of new "close to home" initiative

The new Close to Home initiative focuses on reducing the placement of troubled youths in facilities operated by the state Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) and, instead, concentrates on moving troubled youths to privately run facilties in the very same neighborhoods where they got into trouble in the first place.

PEF leaders and members who work for OCFS joined parents of troubled youths and concerned residents to point out several deficiencies in the plan, including: the high percentage of youths who escape from private facilities, the lack of safety measures at the private facilties and the fact that 38 percent of the youths being moved into these neighborhood communities committed violent crimes.

The hearings were held Monday, May 7, between 5 pm and 8 pm at Brooklyn Borough Hall, 209 Joralemon Street, Brooklyn and again Tuesday, May 8, between 10 am and 1 pm at the Health Building, 2nd Floor Auditorium, 125 Worth Street, New York.

PEF members who have spent years nurturing, teaching and monitoring troubled youths went on-the-record about the many success stories of youths who have turned their lives around in state-operated facilities. For many of the youths and their families, the last thing they needed to be was "close to home."

PEF leaders and OCFS employees to join concerned residents opposed to "close to home" initiative

ALBANY, NY - Leaders of the New York State Public Employees Federation (PEF) will speak at public hearings on a new juvenile justice initiative being billed as "reform," but which, in reality, will put youths and the community at risk.

The new Close to Home initiative focuses on reducing the placement of troubled youths in facilities operated by the state Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) and, instead, concentrates on moving troubled youths to privately run facilties in the very same neighborhoods where they got into trouble in the first place.

PEF leaders and members who work for OCFS will join parents of troubled youths and concerned residents to point out several deficiencies in the plan, including: the high percentage of youths who escape from private facilities, the lack of safety measures at the private facilties and the fact that 38 percent of the youths being moved into these neighborhood communities committed violent crimes.

The hearings are being held Monday, May 7, between 5 pm and 8 pm at Brooklyn Borough Hall, 209 Joralemon Street, Brooklyn and again Tuesday, May 8, between 10 am and 1 pm at the Health Building, 2nd Floor Auditorium, 125 Worth Street, New York.

PEF members who have spent years nurturing, teaching and monitoring troubled youths will go on-the-record about the many success stories of youths who have turned their lives around in state-operated facilities. For many of the youths and their families, the last thing they needed to be was "close to home."