N.Y. Const. art. XVII, § 2: State board of social welfare; powers and duties

§ 2. The state board of social welfare shall be continued. It shall

visit and inspect, or cause to be visited and inspected by members of

its staff, all public and private institutions, whether state, county,

municipal, incorporated or not incorporated, which are in receipt of

public funds and which are of a charitable, eleemosynary, correctional

or reformatory character, including all reformatories for juveniles and

institutions or agencies exercising custody of dependent, neglected or

delinquent children, but excepting state institutions for the education

and support of the blind, the deaf and the dumb, and excepting also such

institutions as are hereinafter made subject to the visitation and

inspection of the department of mental hygiene or the state commission

of correction. As to institutions, whether incorporated or not

incorporated, having inmates, but not in receipt of public funds, which

are of a charitable, eleemosynary, correctional or reformatory

character, and agencies, whether incorporated or not incorporated, not

in receipt of public funds, which exercise custody of dependent,

neglected or delinquent children, the state board of social welfare

shall make inspections, or cause inspections to be made by members of

its staff, but solely as to matters directly affecting the health,

safety, treatment and training of their inmates, or of the children

under their custody. Subject to the control of the legislature and

pursuant to the procedure prescribed by general law, the state board of

social welfare may make rules and regulations, not inconsistent with

this constitution, with respect to all of the functions, powers and

duties with which the department and the state board of social welfare

are herein or shall be charged.