Drop in city workers' retaliation claims alarms Council

Although the city has increased the number of corruption prevention trainings given to municipal employees in recent years, the number of workers alleging retaliation for whistleblowing or who have received whistleblower protection is surprisingly low, according to findings discussed at a recent City Council committee hearing.

The number of complaints alleging corruption and criminal activity received by the Department of Investigation has slightly increased in recent years, from more than 12,300 complaints received in Fiscal Year 2022 to more than 14,600 complaints in FY 2024, DOI Commissioner Jocelyn Strauber testified during Friday’s hearing of the Committee on Oversight and Investigations.

But since FY 2009, the number of city workers who reported to DOI that they had allegedly been retaliated against for reporting corruption has steadily declined, from 52 in FY 2009 to just five in FY 2024.

Council Member Gale Brewer, who chairs the Oversight and Investigations Committee, questioned why the figure has been declining and why it was so low. “Do you think there’s less retaliation today than there has been since 2009? Because it is surprising to me that the numbers are going down,” she said.

Strauber replied that she didn’t know the reasons for the drops. “There’s certainly less reported retaliation to us, and I would hope that that means there’s less retaliation, but that’s just to say I hope the system is working,” she added

Part of the decrease could be attributed to a change, instituted in 2020, that switched jurisdiction over complaints made by Department of Education employees from DOI to the Special Commissioner of Investigation for the New York City School District. But even when retaliation complaints made by DOE employees were removed from the data, an overall decrease in complaints remained, going from a peak of 25 alleged cases of retaliation in FY 2017 to five in FY 2024.

Although DOI has administered anti-corruption training sessions to a slightly higher number of city employees — from 24,013 in FY 2022 to 27,096 in FY 2024— that still represented just 8 percent of the city workforce. Brewer asked how DOI could ensure that the training reached more workers, and Strauber noted that there were just six DOI staffers in the training unit, meaning that the agency would need a boost in funding. 

Brewer also questioned whether workers who are contracted with the city, who are also supposed to report corruption, also receive training or if they are aware of whistleblower protections. Strauber acknowledged that it was difficult to track whether workers employed through vendors received such training.

Few get protections

But there was also a question of whether the threshold to be given whistleblower protections was too high given the paltry number of individuals who have received such safeguards. Ricardo Morales, who was terminated as a deputy commissioner in the Department of Citywide Administrative Services in February 2017 for working with prosecutors probing preferential treatment given by the de Blasio administration to the mayor’s campaign donors, pointed out that fewer than a handful of workers have received whistleblower status. 

Morales made a complaint alleging that his termination was in retaliation for acting as a whistleblower, but a DOI probe that lasted 18 months ultimately upheld his firing.

“When I was last at City Hall [for a Council hearing in 2020] …there were 185 applications for whistleblower status, and one was given, and obviously it was not mine. If it is true that in the last 10 years there have been two people who have gotten the protection, I’ve got to tell you, that is disconcerting,” Morales said during Friday’s hearing.

City Council Member Nantasha Williams questioned why all workers reporting corruption allegations did not qualify for whistleblower status. “I guess I just thought that if someone reports something they’d automatically be considered a whistleblower,” she said.

“I wish that was true,” Morales replied. If he’d been given whistleblower status, Morales said he would have been reinstated to his position. Instead, he has been unable to find another job in city government. 

“The other cost of retaliation is, once you have that label of ‘rat,’ you’re blacklisted. You won’t find work,” he said.

During his tenure, Morales had served in several roles in city government, including as general counsel at both the city Comptroller’s office and at the Housing Authority, and earned a city Ethics in Government Award in 2009 for his work at HA.

The veteran civil servant feared his termination being upheld could deter other city workers from reporting criminal activity and misbehavior, although he hoped that it wouldn’t.

“The chilling effect for people is, ‘This guy, a career professional, had all of these things working for him, these awards and he didn’t get it? I’mma keep my mouth shut,’” Morales said.

clewis@thechiefleader.com