Comptroller finds contractor-provided vehicles primarily used for commuting, not city business –

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New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr. has issued an audit finding that employees of the Department of Design and Construction (DDC) were driving contractor-provided vehicles with suspended licenses.

Thompson’s audit of DDC controls over the use and assignment of contractor-provided vehicles to the agency additionally uncovered cases in which cars were being used primarily to commute and not for City business.

“Employees who drive contractor-provided vehicles while having suspended licenses are not only breaking the law, but also putting the public safety at risk and increasing the potential for City liability,” Thompson said. “By failing to review and update its driver’s-license files, DDC creates a potential risk to the City should a DDC driver have an accident while not having a valid driver’s license.”

You can view the audit at www.comptroller.nyc.gov.

DDC oversees projects for some 22 City agencies, and as of May 2006, oversaw 354 construction contracts totaling $1.5 billion. The projects under those contracts were the responsibility of the agency’s Infrastructure, Structure, and Technical Support divisions.

In July 2006, DDC owned and operated 93 vehicles. In addition, some large construction contracts have provisions that provide for one or more vehicles to be used by DDC engineers for the contract’s duration. Those vehicles are registered to the City although they are owned by the contractors. Each contract, however, provides for payment for the cars. Improper use of the vehicle is considered the City’s liability.

During Fiscal Year 2006, contractors provided 107 vehicles to DDC, costing approximately $1.4 million – about $1,100 per vehicle per month. Of the 107, 99 were assigned to the Infrastructure Division and eight were assigned to the Technical Support Division.

Thompson called DDC’s controls over contractor-provided vehicles “inadequate,” and said his auditors determined that:

• Six of the 154 DDC drivers reviewed drove contractor-provided vehicles while having suspended licenses or privileges. They were suspended for the following: driving while impaired, failure to pay fines, failure to answer summonses, and failure to report an accident.

“Until their suspensions are cleared the drivers would not have permission to drive any vehicles in New York State,” Thompson said. “DDC has an obligation to ensure that its drivers comply with all regulations regarding the use of vehicles and that only drivers with valid licenses operate vehicles while conducting City business.”

• DDC could not provide evidence that one employee, who drove a contractor-provided vehicle on five separate days during Fiscal Year 2006, had a license. New York State Department of Motor Vehicles records contained a non-driver ID only for this driver.

• The review of the 154 drivers revealed that the agency did not have a copy of current licenses for 25 of the 154 drivers. For 20 of the drivers, there was a copy of an expired license on file, and for the other five drivers there was no copy of a license on file.

• Contractor-provided vehicles assigned to the Technical Support Division were used primarily for commuting rather than work-related purposes. For six of the eight contractor-provided vehicles assigned to the Technical Support Division during FY 2006, the percentage of days they were used exclusively for commuting ranged from 67 to 98 percent.

The eight vehicles were used a total of 1,232 days during FY 2006, but according to logs were only used for work-related purposes for 431 – about a third – of those days. For the remaining 801 days, - the vehicles were used just for commuting.

“These vehicles are intended to aid DDC in monitoring the work of contractors,” Thompson said. “The fact that these vehicles are being used primarily for commuting indicates that either the vehicles are being poorly utilized or that DDC has more vehicles than needed to monitor contractors.

• Four – 13 percent – of the 32 engineers in the Comptroller’s sample of drivers kept their vehicles at home for a week or more while on vacation, making these vehicles unavailable for use by other engineers.

“Since these vehicles are being provided to DDC for the DDC engineers to oversee the contract, DDC should not be paying for these vehicles to be parked unused for up to 3½ weeks simply because an engineer is on vacation,” Thompson said.

• DDC failed to ensure that accurate records were maintained detailing how contractor-provided vehicles assigned to the Infrastructure Division were used, and drivers did not complete their trip logs in accordance with DDC procedures.

The Comptroller made eight recommendations, asking DDC to: update and review its manual files to ensure all drivers have valid and up-to-date driver’s licenses; follow-up more effectively upon notification by DMV that employee licenses have been revoked or suspended and take appropriate action; better utilize the contractor-provided vehicles assigned to Technical Support; establish a written policy that clearly incorporates procedures for assigned vehicles when an engineer is planning to be away for a week or more and distribute this policy to all drivers; and, require that the Infrastructure Division drivers complete trip logs.

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