BACKLOGGED

DOI falls behind on nearly 6,000 background checks

THE CITY Department of Investigation has a backlog of 5,750 background checks for new municipal employees, internal city records obtained by the Daily News show.

The reviews haven’t even begun on 1,991 of those cases forwarded to DOI by different city agencies as of June 2, the data obtained through a Freedom of Information Law request shows.

City investigators have been swamped by a spike in hiring by the de Blasio administration, and DOI doesn’t have close to enough investigators needed to tackle the comprehensive screenings, personnel records show.

At least 20 background checks have languished for more than three years, with the top case in DOI hands for 1,418 days, the data show.

“We know there is a serious backlog and are concerned,” DOI Commissioner Mark Peters said in a statement. “This, however, is a result of a very thorough process and too few staff.”

Each of DOI’s 16 background check investigators is working on an average of 160 reviews, DOI said.

The city requires that all managerial employees undergo a background check, a screening that includes filling out a 40-page questionnaire.

Full-time employees earning more than $100,000, staffers directly involved in city contracts, and people who work on the city’s computer programs and “other sensitive positions” also must pass background checks.

There are approximately 2,000 city workers who fall into those categories each year, according to DOI.

That number has steadily gone up as the city now employs close to 294,000 full-time staffers, a historic high, payroll records show.

DOI has particularly benefited from the hiring spree over the past three years.

The agency has boosted its full-time staff by 70% over that period, the data show. All told, DOI currently employs 352 fulltime staffers, records reveal.

But most of the additional personnel have been used to tackle new oversight responsibilities at city Health and Hospitals and to cover the NYPD inspector general’s office.

There was money for only four new hires last year to tackle the growing backlog, Peters (photo) testified before the City Council in March.

Further complicating the matter, DOI recently audited two unnamed city agencies and discovered more than 1,000 staffers who were never sent over for background checks. The employees are now being checked. Overall, DOI would not say how many people have failed background checks — or for what reasons. Some have been flunked due to failure to pay taxes and others for more nefarious reasons, like a prior criminal conviction, sources said. All told, DOI completed 11,047 cases over the past five years, records show. It took an average of 364 days to finish those reviews. That’s in part because the department has changed how it calculates the length of time each check takes. For years, DOI started the clock when an investigator picked up the file. Now, the department is tracking each case right when it is submitted by an agency to DOI.

“I think that’s a more accurate way to do it,” Peters testified during the budget hearing in March. “What we really care about is, how long does the whole process take? I’d rather have accurate numbers than good-looking numbers.”

The majority of the worst longstanding reviews involve staffers at Health and Hospitals, records show. Twelve of the top 20 mostdated cases are from that agency, including the top two oldest cases, going back to 2013, the data show.

DOI has long struggled to clear its backlogged background checks.

“This has always been a problem,” said a former high-ranking DOI official during the Bloomberg administration. “It kind of makes a mockery of the whole system.”