New York taxpayers keep checking the boxes on their tax returns to send money to homeless veterans, food banks, cancer research and volunteer fire departments. The state, however, is having a much harder time actually getting that money out the door. A new report from the Office of the State Comptroller found that New York is sitting on $17.5 million in accumulated charitable checkoff donations, with more than half of the state's 28 checkoff-supported funds disbursing zero dollars in the fiscal year that ended in June.
A Nine-Year Spending High Still Leaves Millions Untouched
The findings, released Friday, mark the latest fiscal oversight report from Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli's office, as reported by the New York Post. The state comptroller report found that New York agencies failed to distribute millions of dollars from the charitable tax checkoffs New Yorkers can opt into while filing their returns. Total spending from the 28 checkoff-backed funds did reach $4.5 million in State Fiscal Year 2026, a nine-year high, up from $3.7 million the prior year and $2.5 million in SFY 2022, according to the Office of the New York State Comptroller. But that increase in spending hasn't kept pace with the pile of unspent donations, which climbed from $16.1 million in SFY 2023 to a peak of $17.5 million in SFY 2026.
The imbalance is stark: 15 of the 28 eligible funds made zero disbursements in SFY 2026, an active spending rate of just 46 percent — though that is an improvement from the 19 percent rate seen in SFY 2023 and SFY 2024, per the comptroller's office. Seven of the ten largest checkoff funds by balance failed to disburse any money at all during the fiscal year, according to the report, showing that the bottleneck is concentrated among the state's biggest charitable accounts rather than its smaller ones.
Idle Funds for Food Banks and Firefighters
Among the funds gathering dust: the Gifts for Food Banks Fund has held $1.1 million untouched since 2024, and the Volunteer Firefighting and Emergency Services Recruitment and Retention Fund has sat on roughly $2.3 million since 2023, even after taking in about $300,000 from 2025 tax returns alone. Health research funds make up a large share of the total as well — the Prostate and Testicular Cancer Research and Education Fund held over $2.8 million in SFY 2026, while the Breast Cancer Research and Education Fund held over $2.7 million, according to the Office of the New York State Comptroller.
DiNapoli said state agencies responsible for the funds must ensure the contributions are put to good use, calling it unacceptable that the money remains unspent. New York taxpayers, meanwhile, are giving more than ever: annual contributions to the checkoff programs rose from $2.6 million in SFY 2024 to $3.8 million in SFY 2025, per the comptroller's office. A 2015 state law prompted by the comptroller requires agencies to standardize reporting on the checkoffs and disburse donations within the same year they're received to the extent possible, but compliance has remained inconsistent in the years since. Even so, lawmakers have kept adding new checkoff categories — the state created two new options in tax year 2024, the Diabetes Research and Education Fund and the Cure Child Cancer Research Fund, bringing the statewide total to 36 checkoff options, the most of any state in the nation.
Homeless Veterans Fund Shows What Pressure Can Do
One fund offers a rare success story. The Homeless Veterans Assistance Fund spent over $1.2 million in SFY 2026, driving its balance down 90.8 percent from the prior year to just $130,641, according to the comptroller's report. State Assemblymember Jake Ashby, an Afghanistan war veteran who represents New York's 43rd District covering Rensselaer County and parts of Washington and Albany counties, said he and fellow lawmakers pushed the state to release $1.7 million for homeless veteran services over the past two years.
Ashby told the New York Post that New Yorkers continue giving generously despite harsh economic realities, and called it insulting that oversight officials would overlook those tax-form donations. He also said the Hochul administration has not proven itself a better caretaker of New Yorkers' donations. Governor Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency over food insecurity during last year's federal government shutdown, a backdrop that adds weight to the finding that the Gifts for Food Banks Fund has gone untouched since 2024.
The comptroller's office has flagged fiscal shortfalls before. Hoodline previously reported on an audit tallying $670M in unclaimed Medicaid funds, and on findings that a veterans services portal failed elderly users for years. Whether the modest gains seen in the Homeless Veterans Assistance Fund can be replicated across the state's dozens of other dormant charitable accounts remains an open question, one that will likely depend on whether lawmakers apply the same pressure to the other 14 funds that spent nothing at all in the past fiscal year.
