{"id":145243,"date":"2026-02-25T20:53:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T20:53:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/145243\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T20:53:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T20:53:13","slug":"mamdanis-new-nyc-social-services-boss-was-behind-ai-algorithm-that-sparked-racial-uproar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/145243\/","title":{"rendered":"Mamdani&#8217;s new NYC social services boss was behind AI algorithm that sparked racial uproar"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/02\/24\/opinion\/michael-goodwin-mayor-mamdani-offers-sloppy-response-to-nypd-officers-attacked-with-snowballs\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mayor Zohran Mamdani<\/a> has appointed Erin Dalton \u2014 a former Pennsylvania official who faced backlash after implementing an AI algorithm that disproportionately targeted black families \u2014 as his commissioner of social services.<\/p>\n<p>Dalton comes from the Pittsburgh area of the state, where she served as director of Allegheny County\u2019s Department of Human Services.<\/p>\n<p>Erin Dalton is Mamdani\u2019s DSS commissioner. Allegheny County Department of Human Services<\/p>\n<p>The Mamdani administration heralded her efforts there to get <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/02\/23\/us-news\/nyc-wont-tear-down-homeless-encampments-during-historic-blizzard-mamdani-says\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">homeless people off the streets<\/a> without using the threat of jail and her implementation of a county mobile response team that sent out mental health workers on 911 calls.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cErin Dalton has spent decades proving that government can and must work better for people who rely on it most,\u201d Mamdani said. \u201cShe has expanded access to housing, strengthened social\u00a0services\u00a0and protected our most vulnerable neighbors.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Erin Dalton faced criticism for her oversight of the child welfare program in Allegheny County. Allegheny County<\/p>\n<p>But Dalton faced blowback for her oversight of the child welfare program in the county, which has less than half the population of Queens alone.<\/p>\n<p>Allegheny County\u2019s algorithm repeatedly flagged black children much more than their white counterparts for \u201cmandatory\u201d follow-ups, alleging potential neglect, according to the Associated Press.<\/p>\n<p>Zohran Mamdani appointed a DSS commissioner.  Michael Nagle for NY Post<\/p>\n<p>County officials brushed off the concern, saying social workers had the ability to override the tool. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mayor Zohran Mamdani has appointed Erin Dalton \u2014 a former Pennsylvania official who faced backlash after implementing an&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145244,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[8795,2000,57,9,24,56,63,65,64,58,25636,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-145243","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-child-welfare","9":"tag-homelessness","10":"tag-metro","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-nyc-headlines","16":"tag-nyc-news","17":"tag-us-news","18":"tag-welfare","19":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}