For three years, the New York State Museum in Albany received federal funds on the basis of hours of work which did not correspond to those actually dedicated to projects financed. According to an investigation by the Office of Inspector General of the United States Department of Interior, the museum managers asked some employees to compile timesheets inaccurate, resulting in a greater commitment on certain projects. In this way, between 2020 and 2022, the museum obtained improperly $597,624 from the federal government.
The money came from STATEMAP, a United States Geological Survey program that finances the creation of geological cards by individual states. The system provides that each dollar paid by the federal government corresponds one put by the state receiving funding. The state contribution can also include the cost of staff working on projects: this is why the number of hours declared by employees is used to establish how many federal funds can be required.
STATEMAP is part of the National Cooperative Geologic Mapping Program, the main federal program for the production of geological maps in the United States. The maps are used for the management of water and mineral resources, spatial planning, infrastructure and evaluation of natural risks.
According to investigators, at the New York State Museum the cofinancing mechanism was altered in several ways. Some employees were trained to declare a percentage of work on STATEMAP projects higher than the actual one. The museum also used funding for the salaries of two people who had not worked on the projects, while for another employee investigators failed to reconstruct how the paid salary with federal funds was used. Without asking for authorization to USGS, managers also changed some of the people indicated as essential in the projects and moved money initially intended for transfers and supplies to pay wages: they are all irregularities listed in the report published on 28 May by Inspector General.
This does not mean that funded geological projects have not been implemented. The USGS has confirmed that the museum has received technical reports, results and final documentation for all three years. The problem is how costs were accounted for and above all the contribution the New York State claimed to have made available to obtain the corresponding federal share. The survey concluded that that contribution did not reach the stated figures.
In April 2025 a senior New York State official had admitted to investigators that at least for the 2022 funding cycle had not been respected the obligation to cover half the costs. In the meantime, some recording methods of working hours had been corrected, but according to the Inspector General, the measures taken by the State concerned only $40.511 of the almost 600 thousand obtained improperly. The survey began in July 2024.
The case had become public in that year, when the New York Times had told the accusations of Brian Slater, a former museum employee who had worked for years as a geologist. Slater claimed that he was pushed by a superior to present false recordings of his own hours and that higher-level executives were aware of the system. The Office of Inspector General then conducted the investigation together with the New York State Comptroller’s office, Thomas DiNapoli, reaching a clear conclusion: the charges were founded.
It is a particularly important result because the New York State Education Department itself, on which the museum depends, had already carried out its own verification on the charges and had closed it quickly. According to the documents obtained by the New York Times, the internal investigation had established that it was not possible to conclude that there had been “mismanagement or fraud”, bad management or fraud. The federal investigation came to the opposite conclusion.
However, the case should not lead to federal criminal proceedings. The Inspector General sent the case to the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Northern District of New York, which decided not to proceed penally and to let the USGS recover money and any administrative measures. The report was then handed over to the USGS Director to ask for the return of the sums considered undue and decide whether to take other measures.
The New York State Education Department said it would accept the results of the investigation as a whole. The spokesman JP O’Hare argued that the department has collaborated with investigators and that it is ready to return the funding that will be definitively judged not covered by the required state contribution. The comptroller’s office also confirmed the central point of the investigation: nearly 600 thousand dollars were billed to the federal program through hours that were actually dedicated by employees to other works.
For Slater, however, the return of money would only solve part of the matter. In a statement at the New York Times he said that some employees had been pressed to participate in the system for fear of losing their jobs and asked for consequences for the people involved. The public report of the Inspector General does not identify the responsible executives and, with the decision of federal prosecutors not to open a procedure, individual sanctions have not been announced at the moment.
The case concerns a period already complicated in the recent history of the museum. In July 2024, the Times Union published a long reconstruction on the conditions of the New York State Museum, collecting evidence of employees describing an institution blocked by bureaucracy, insufficient funding and problems in the management structure. Several permanent installations had remained substantially unchanged for decades, some spaces had been closed and renewal projects announced in previous years had accumulated delays. Director Mark Schaming, who worked at the museum for 37 years, left office in July 2024.
Since then management has changed. In September 2025, Jennifer Saunders became director, the first woman to lead the museum in her 189 years of history, as announced by the New York State Museum. At the same time, Kathy Hochul’s government launched a $150 million investment to renew the structure, which was included in a larger program for the centre of Albany.
The first phase of the transformation, presented in January 2026, includes new installations, a space dedicated to children, the reopening of the café and the museum shop and a wider calendar of temporary exhibitions. The investment had already been planned in the state budget of the previous year, within a plan of more than 400 million dollars for the requalification of Albany.
It is to this change that referred to the state congressman John McDonald, whose college includes part of the county of Albany, talking about a “new era” for the museum. The federal investigation concerns a previous management, but leaves open a problem that goes beyond the recovery of $597,624: for years a system of incorrect reporting managed to overcome internal controls and, when an employee denounced it, the first investigation of the state concluded that there were no sufficient elements to talk about fraud or mismanagement. A federal investigation is needed to reach the opposite conclusion.
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