State comptroller: OPWDD failed to provide timely pandemic-era guidance

ALBANY — The state agency tasked with coordinating services for people with developmental disabilities failed to adequately provide timely or consistent guidance during the coronavirus pandemic's peak, endangering thousands of residents in group home facilities, state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli charged in an audit of the Office for People with Developmental Disabilities. 

The audit found that only around 1 percent of group homes, all operated by OPWDD, were given specific guidance on how to navigate care during the COVID-19 pandemic. The other 6,900 facilities that OPWDD regulates — but does not operate — were required to develop their own safety plans, according to the state comptroller’s office. 

Those homes “could have benefited from OPWDD’s expertise,” the audit found. The vast majority of COVID-19 cases sprung from non-state operated homes, accounting for nearly 13,000 infections. 

The audit, released last week, also criticized agency officials for being uncooperative for months during the audit process, which included a review of the agency’s emergency plans and their rollout during the pandemic over a three-year period from January 2019 to April 2022. 

“Group homes are supposed to offer people with developmental disabilities safe places to live as independently as possible," DiNapoli said in a statement. "Our audit found OPWDD did not issue timely, consistent guidance to the vast majority of their certified group homes. Inconsistent emergency management coordination and oversight put residents, families and staff in harm’s way.”

Both the comptroller's office and OPWDD officials acknowledged that emergency planning is more complicated because of the network of outside agencies the OPWDD works with to house the vast majority of its clients. Yet the agency’s responses to the emergency, including delivering guidance to group home operators, was largely reactive instead of proactive, the audit charged. 

In a response, the agency pushed back against several of the comptroller’s findings, insisting it followed protocols and was in the midst of an unprecedented situation that rapidly evolved.

OPWDD critiqued the audit’s scope as overly broad and said it disagreed with the comptroller’s methodology. In one example, they disputed a graph that showed the rates of COVID-19 infections grew “unabated” during each wave of the pandemic instead of trending downward. 

The agency suggested that the larger number of infections was due to widespread testing and reporting of COVID-19 cases. 

Erin Silk, a spokeswoman for OPWDD, reiterated that the agency implemented best practices and pointed to guidance it followed from the state Department of Health as well as the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. 

“While the ever-changing nature of the public health emergency demanded agility ... OPWDD prioritized the continuity of services while ensuring health and safety during this unprecedented, worldwide event,” Silk said in an email. 

More than 650 people living in facilities managed or overseen by OPWDD died from COVID-19. More than 13,000 people in residential programs contracted the virus over a two-year period beginning March 2020, according to numbers provided by the state comptroller.

The state comptroller’s office said that the agency stonewalled requests from the comptroller’s office to provide data related to virus-related deaths and other key data points. Agency officials also questioned the comptroller’s authority in performing the audit, the audit noted.

It recommended that OPWDD review emergency protocols and ensure that all group homes are up-to-date on current policies in case of another public health emergency. Infection control should be monitored and reviewed at all group homes, and communication with staff bolstered, the audit said. 

“Rather than being defensive, OPWDD should learn from this experience and examine how it can be more proactive in the future,” DiNapoli said.

The report follows a series of others that DiNapoli’s office has released that shows poor handling or limited oversight of group homes charged with taking care of the state’s most vulnerable residents during the pandemic. 

Separately, DiNapoli’s office has criticized the state Department of Health for what it deemed a failure to adequately protect people living in nursing homes during the pandemic. 

DiNapoli, as well as state Attorney General Letitia James, previously reported that New York officials had undercounted the number of deaths that occurred at long-term care facilities due to COVID-19.