Audit Report on the New York City Housing Authority’s Maintenance and Repair Practices

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) has provided housing for low and moderate income New York City residents since it was chartered in 1934.  Currently, there are approximately 400,000 residents in 328 developments in all five boroughs.   NYCHA uses the Maximo software system to create, assign, and track Work Orders to perform maintenance and repair work that is requested by residents or initiated by NYCHA and private management companies overseen by NYCHA.  There are four categories of Work Orders:

• Corrective Maintenance Work Orders – all resident Service Requests result in Corrective Maintenance Work Orders and they can also be created by NYCHA staff and private contractors who manage some NYCHA developments.  They constitute the vast majority of NYCHA Work Orders.
• Inspection Work Orders – created to prompt inspections of various types including apartments, boilers, elevators, fire extinguishers, and window guards.
• Preventive Maintenance Work Orders – created for routine maintenance issues such as elevators, West Nile Virus treatment, and heating equipment.
• Violation Work Orders – created in connection with summonses and violation notices issued by various government entities such as the Fire Department (FDNY), the Department of Buildings (DOB), and the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH).

In January 2013, NYCHA reported that it had a backlog of more than 420,000 Work Orders.  To address the backlog and improve residents’ quality of life, NYCHA announced that it was implementing new operational efficiencies and process changes to achieve its goals of eliminating the entire backlog by the end of 2013, and permanently reducing the average wait time for repair work to one week for simple repairs and two weeks for repairs needing skilled tradesmen and responding to all emergency repair requests within 24 hours.  Further, NYCHA committed to providing reports on the status of the backlog reduction.  Thereafter, NYCHA began reporting monthly statistics on its website including the number of open Work Orders, the average amount of time it takes NYCHA to complete Work Orders, and its backlog of open Work Orders.

Additionally, in April 2014, NYCHA entered into a Stipulation and Order of Settlement (the Settlement) with residents who alleged they suffered from asthma and alleged that NYCHA failed to make reasonable accommodations and modifications in its policies, practices, and procedures to effectively abate mold, mildew, and/or excessive moisture conditions.   The Settlement provided that NYCHA would modify its policies and procedures, train staff on them, and “maintain an average service level of no more than seven (7) days for completion of mold and excessive moisture-related work orders that require simple repairs that can be done by a maintenance worker in a single visit to the apartment and an average service level of no more than fifteen (15) days for completion of more complex repairs.”

As of April 2015, NYCHA reported that it had 120,730 open Work Orders and advised that NYCHA’s manageable workload is about 90,000 Work Orders.  For that same time, NYCHA reported that, on average, it took NYCHA 35 days to complete repairs.

Audit Findings and Conclusions

NYCHA did not meet its goals of eliminating the entire Work Order backlog and permanently reducing repair wait times.   In particular, NYCHA did not meet its stated goals for the average time for completion of its largest category of Work Orders, Corrective Maintenance Work Orders, within prescribed time frames.  Additionally, NYCHA did not ensure that Violation Work Orders were performed in a timely manner and did not establish time frames for or adequately track the completion of Inspection and Preventive Maintenance Work Orders.  Further, in its performance reports to the public, NYCHA significantly understated Work Order statistics, including the total number of open Work Orders, the average amount of time it takes NYCHA to complete Work Orders, and its backlog of open Work Orders.  To the extent that NYCHA reported dramatic reductions in the number of open Work Orders and the time it took to complete repairs, we found, at least in part, that reduction resulted from NYCHA making administrative changes in the way it categorized and closed Work Orders rather than from actually performing repairs more quickly.

NYCHA also did not effectively track whether residents were satisfied with work in accordance with its own procedures.  Further, with regard to mold, mildew, and/or excessive moisture conditions, NYCHA did not train staff, appropriately identify the nature and severity of conditions, and assign qualified staff to assess conditions and design and perform remediation work.

Based on survey responses we received, and our review, we cannot be assured that NYCHA completes Work Orders in a satisfactory manner because of these issues.

Audit Recommendations 

This report makes a total of 27 recommendations to NYCHA, including:

• NYCHA should implement operational changes to improve its ability to timely address Work Orders and in particular identify and implement detailed steps necessary and time frames to implement the materials acquisition, planning, scheduling, and staffing required to meet NYCHA’s goals for addressing resident-requested and staff-initiated repairs.
• NYCHA should ensure that data is recorded so that management can readily identify and review Violation Work Orders approaching and past due dates.
• NYCHA should record and track actual or targeted completion dates for Inspection and Preventive Maintenance Work Orders in Maximo.
• NYCHA should include all Work Orders, regardless of location and category, in the total number of open Work Orders reported on its website.
• NYCHA should establish and report on its website Service Level Agreement days (i.e., the average number of days to complete a repair for a month) based on the amount of time it takes to fully complete repairs.
• NYCHA should discretely report Service Level Agreement days for emergency, simple, and more complex repairs on its website.
• NYCHA should report the actual number of Work Orders open beyond prescribed time frames on its website.
• NYCHA should immediately reinstate the GM Directive-3760 requirement to document Resident Satisfaction Survey results in Maximo.
• NYCHA should ensure that Executive management-including but not limited to the Chair, General Manager, the Operations Executive Vice President, Operations Vice Presidents, and Operations Directors-reviews Resident Satisfaction Survey data monthly and take appropriate follow-up and corrective action to ensure that work is performed and that residents are satisfied with the quality of work.
• NYCHA should ensure that mold, mildew, and/or excessive moisture inspection and remediation Work Orders are assigned to appropriately trained staff.

Agency Response

In its response, NYCHA stated that it shared many of the concerns raised in the report and that it was “committed to changing the way we do business.”  NYCHA attributed its maintenance and repair deficiencies to “[b]illions in underfunding by all levels of government, outdated and inefficient management models, and rapidly deteriorating buildings. . . .  As funding has decreased, capital repairs and rehabilitations have been deferred resulting in the dramatic increase in the needs and costs for maintenance and repairs.”

Nevertheless, NYCHA stated that it “has made meaningful progress in improving our maintenance and repair practices and outcomes over the past 18 months.  As a step in the right direction, NYCHA has reduced the number of open work orders and the average repair wait time by more than 50 percent since 2013.”  However, NYCHA acknowledged that it “must fundamentally change how we do business, which is why NYCHA recently released NextGeneration NYCHA-a 10-year strategic plan to change the way NYCHA is funded, operates and engages residents. . . .  Through immediate measures and long-term strategies in NextGeneration NYCHA, we plan to address many of the issues you raised.”

We are pleased that NYCHA recognizes its failure to adequately address the repair and maintenance needs of its residents and that it has expressed a commitment to addressing its problems.  However, NYCHA’s response and the NextGeneration NYCHA plan do not directly address many of the report’s findings and recommendations.  Moreover, since this is the fourth plan issued by NYCHA in ten years to address maintenance and repair and other related operational and fiscal issues, we are concerned whether the strategies described in this plan will be fully implemented and tracked and whether the intended benefits will ultimately be realized.

The full text of NYCHA’s response is included as an addendum to the report.