They’re everywhere in the subway system: cameras. But sometimes they don’t work — and State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli says an audit conducted by his office found New York City Transit is having issues keeping up with maintenance and repairs.

“We owe it to the people of New York and the riders that we are in fact not just having good intention, but in fact maintaining the system,” DiNapoli said. “Making sure that these closed circuit TV’s, the alarms, all the other kinds of devices that are put in place — that in fact, they are there, number one, and number two, that they’re in working order and that we do routine maintenance and inspection to avoid part of the system going out of order.”

The audit found that between 2019 and 2022 in a sample of just over 1,000 pieces of equipment, including cameras and help point intercoms, about 900 were scheduled for preventative maintenance, but the MTA could only prove 300 had been maintained. And when a camera system needed a repair, which should take less than three days, some repairs took almost a year.

“It was for a combination of reasons. In some cases, they didn’t seem to have adequate staff to do the work,” DiNapoli said. “So it really suggested they need to make sure that beefing up the staff that’s going to be providing the maintenance for the security equipment. It’s one thing to install it, but then you really have to maintain it and really have the staff to do that when you identify a problem.”

There have been some high-profile incidents where cameras were not working, like when Frank James opened fire on an N train in Sunset Park in 2022.

In a statement, the MTA said it has improved since then, using a familiar refrain — saying the system has more cameras than a Las Vegas casino, about 15,000 in stations.

The statement goes on to say New York City Transit is “on track to equip every subway car with security cameras by the end of the year. At any given time, 99% of cameras are producing video as intended, with most of the rest out for scheduled maintenance.”

All the cameras feed into the transit command center where police see it in real time. NYPD Chief of Transit Michael Kemper said they’re an important crime-fighting tool at a July 17 press conference touting the drop in subway crime.

“The question was, ‘do you think it’s helping reduce crime?’ Yes, absolutely, 100 percent,” Kemper said at the time.

While part of this audit was done during COVID, when there were labor and supply-chain issues, DiNapoli said the problems have persisted. He says it’s even more important for the MTA to be on top of this, with funding for the capital program at risk that could affect maintenance in the future.

New York City Transit did respond to the audit, noting they are working to improve oversight of its inspection, repair and maintenance records across all their equipment.

The agency also says COVID played a role in some of the delays, but also felt some of the comptroller’s methodology was unfair. They claim he picked a small sample of delayed repair tickets out of thousands, and didn’t take into account issues with certain contractors.