Audit Report on the New York City Commission on Human Rights’ Processing of Complaints

Executive Summary

This audit evaluated the processes and timeliness in handling complaints alleging violation of the City’s Human Rights Law¹ by the New York City Commission on Human Rights (CCHR).
CCHR is responsible for enforcing the Human Rights Law, which prohibits discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations based on race, color, creed, age, national origin, alienage, citizenship status, gender, sexual orientation, disability, marital status and partnership status.  A person who believes that s/he has been the victim of discrimination within the City and who has not already filed a complaint with the New York State Division of Human Rights, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, or any other similar agency or court, may schedule an appointment or walk in to CCHR’s office in lower Manhattan to enter a complaint with the Law Enforcement Bureau.² This bureau is directly responsible for the intake, investigation, and prosecution of complaints alleging violations of the Human Rights Law.

Audit Findings and Conclusions

The audit found that while CCHR had established an informal system of internal practices and protocols for handling complaints that reflect key provisions of the Human Rights Law and CCHR’s “Rules of Practice,”³ it failed to meet its internally established benchmark for the time in which it investigates complaints.  Less than half of the 593 cases that CCHR closed between January 1, 2012 and June 14, 2013, 291 (49 percent), were closed within the agency’s one-year benchmark.  For the remaining 302 (51 percent) cases, CCHR took an average of 427 days to complete investigations and close the cases.  CCHR had not analyzed its case files to identify the key factors that affected its case processing and caused delays, nor developed any additional strategies to improve case timeliness.  The timely disposition of legal matters is important, particularly in a discrimination case, where the discrimination may continue until the case is resolved.  Moreover, peoples’ memories become less acute the longer that a matter remains unresolved, so it may be more difficult for CCHR to bring a successful action against a respondent if it takes more than a year to determine whether probable cause of discrimination exists.

The audit also disclosed that CCHR lacked formal, written operating procedures for the handling and processing of complaints.  Formal written procedures help to ensure that every person involved in a process understands the tasks that are to be accomplished and the acceptable methods to be used in performing those tasks.  Finally, the audit noted that CCHR’s Complaint Tracking System (CTS) lacked adequate data entry controls to ensure that input data is complete, accurate, and reasonable.  If left uncorrected, this weakness could impede the reliability of data, especially case-related performance statistics reported annually by CCHR.

Audit Recommendations

To address these weaknesses the audit made the following six recommendations:

• CCHR should conduct a formal assessment of its case files to determine and identify key reasons for case delays.
• Based on the results of that assessment, CCHR should develop strategies for alleviating or reducing those reasons for delay to create greater efficiency in the timely processing of cases.
• CCHR should identify and correct the data fields in CTS noted as having inadequate entry controls to ensure no further errors in data entry.  Program changes should ensure that personnel are prevented from entering erroneous dates, and correct existing dating problems.
• CCHR should consider replacing its current CTS database or performing a comprehensive review of the system to identify existing problems and errors, and develop a systematic plan and timeframe for correcting those problems.
• CCHR should design and implement exception reporting to identify inaccurate data entries or rejected transactions.
• CCHR should ensure that it has clearly defined policies and operating procedures in place to address the handling of complaints and case files.  These policies and operating procedures should establish at least a minimum acceptable set of requirements that reflect the Human Rights Law, Title 47 of RCNY, and Comptroller’s Directives.

Agency Response

In its response, CCHR officials generally agreed with 4 of the 6 recommendations (3, 4, 5, and 6) made in this audit.  However, the agency failed to directly respond to two others (1 and 2) which concerned the need for CCHR to assess and identify key causes of case delays and to develop strategies for effectively addressing those issues.