Audit Report on the Eighteen Brooklyn Community Boards’ Compliance with New York City Charter and New York City Administrative Code Requirements for Public Meetings and Hearings, and for Websites

Executive Summary

Community Boards are established under the New York City Charter (City Charter) Chapter 70, Section 2800(a), which states that “[f]or each community district . . . there shall be a community board.” The Community Boards are local representative bodies authorized by the City Charter to advocate for the residents and needs of their districts. New York City (the City) is divided into 59 community districts, each served by a Community Board.

Several City agencies are responsible for assisting the Community Boards in fulfilling their overall responsibilities including the respective Borough Presidents, the Civic Engagement Commission, and the Mayor’s Office Community Affairs Unit.

Each Community Board comprises up to 50 non-salaried members, each of whom must reside, work, or have some other significant interest in the district. One of the Community Board members is elected by the other members to serve as the Chairperson. In addition, each Community Board appoints a District Manager and may employ other staff and consultants to fulfill its duties, all of whom are paid by the City. Each Community Board is allocated funds through the City budget to cover staff salaries and non-salary expenses, including rent, utilities, and other miscellaneous expenses.

Brooklyn has 18 Community Boards that collectively cover the entire borough.

Audit Findings and Conclusions

The Brooklyn Community Boards generally complied with the City Charter requirement to set aside time to hear from the public at public meetings.

However, our audit found that not all of the 18 Brooklyn Community Boards complied with the City Charter requirements relating to public meetings and hearings, and to maintaining websites. Specifically, we found that most of the 18 Brooklyn Community Boards did not consistently conduct monthly public hearings, and that certain Brooklyn Community Boards did not consistently conduct monthly general board meetings, did not set aside time to hear from the public before the board took actions such as votes during meetings, did not provide adequate public notice for meetings and hearings by notifying media outlets and posting notices in physical public locations and on their websites, did not make meetings and hearings available for broadcasting and cablecasting, and did not publish past meeting minutes on their websites.

Additionally, our audit found that not all of the Brooklyn Community Boards fully complied with New York City Administrative Code (NYC Administrative Code) requirements relating to maintaining websites. Specifically, some Brooklyn Community Boards did not maintain a website at all, or did not maintain websites that are translatable into the seven most commonly spoken languages in New York City, and did not maintain websites which were fully accessible for persons with disabilities.

Finally, Brooklyn Community Board #5 and Brooklyn Community Board #6 consistently failed to respond to our requests for information and records related to their official responsibilities and to our requests for meetings to discuss their relevant operations. Through this lack of cooperation, the two community boards obstructed and hindered aspects of the audit.

For the majority of findings discussed in the report, the Brooklyn Community Board officials informed us that the main reasons they are not in compliance are a lack of: (1) guidance, instructions, assistance, and support from the other City agencies who are responsible for assisting the Community Boards, and (2) financial and professional resources necessary to fulfill the requirements.

Audit Recommendations

Based on our findings, we made the following nine recommendations to the Brooklyn Community Boards. The Brooklyn Community Boards should:

• Conduct public hearings each month in accordance with the New York City Charter Chapter 70, Section 2800(h) and, if necessary, seek guidance on how to comply with this requirement by contacting the New York City Law Department as well as the other City agencies tasked with providing assistance to the Community Boards—the Brooklyn Borough President’s Office, the Civic Engagement Commission, and the Mayor’s Office Community Affairs Unit;
• Set aside time to hear from the public prior to taking actions at meetings and hearings;
• Ensure that public notice of all general board meetings is given to news media outlets and posted in public locations;
• Ensure that public notice of all public hearings is published in the official newspaper or in a newspaper having general circulation within the municipality and posted in public locations and includes the date, time, and place of the hearing, and a brief statement of the purpose of the hearing;
• Take the necessary steps to ensure that all meetings and hearings are made available for broadcasting and cablecasting, including but not limited to, determining how to obtain access to channels dedicated for governmental use, identifying the associated costs, and allocating or seeking the necessary resources to comply with the City Charter mandate;
• Maintain websites and ensure that the websites include verifiable contact information for the board;
• Provide adequate public notice of upcoming meetings on their websites and include information such as the date, time, and location of the meeting as well as the internet address of the website streaming such meeting if applicable;
• Post meeting minutes from meetings for the past 12 months on their websites; and
• Contact DoITT and website platform vendors to ensure that their websites include a translation feature that allows the text of their website to be viewed in the seven most commonly spoken languages in the City and are fully accessible to persons with disabilities as per the WCAG 2.0 Level AA standard.

Agency Responses

On December 8, 2021, we submitted a draft report to the Brooklyn Community Boards with a request for comments. We received written responses from Brooklyn Community Boards #1, #2, #4, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12, and #14. In their responses, Brooklyn Community Boards #7, #8, #11, and #12 generally agreed with the report’s findings and agreed to implement the report’s recommendations. In their responses, Brooklyn Community Boards #1, #2, #4, #9, #10, and #14 addressed only certain report findings and generally did not address the report’s recommendations. We considered all comments and documentation the boards submitted and modified the report where warranted. We did not receive written comments in response to the draft report from Brooklyn Community Boards #3, #5, #6, #13, #15, #16, #17, and #18.