Audit Report on the Controls over the Processing of Notices of Violation Issued by the Department of Sanitation

The Department of Sanitation (DSNY) is responsible for the cleanliness of City streets, collection of refuse, and final disposal of waste. It enforces City sanitation laws and regulations as well as rules related to the City’s health codes. DSNY monitors compliance with provisions of the codes related to cleanliness of City streets. Violators receive a Notice of Violation (NOV), which is adjudicated by the Environmental Control Board (ECB), and any resulting penalties are paid to ECB or the Department of Finance (DOF).

The audit determined (1) whether DSNY had adequate controls in place to ensure that NOVs are properly processed and (2) whether DSNY made adequate efforts to identify and eliminate deficiencies in its issuance process that may contribute to NOV dismissals.

Audit Findings and Conclusion

DSNY’s controls over the issuance and processing of NOVs need to be improved. DSNY has not made adequate efforts to identify and eliminate deficiencies in its issuance process. DSNY does not track and monitor NOV disposition and dismissal information and is, therefore, unable to identify and track the causes of the dismissals. This information would aid DSNY in developing strategies to help reduce dismissals based on deficiencies in its issuance process.

The audit also identified other weaknesses in DSNY’s oversight of NOVs. Specifically, DSNY has inadequate segregation of duties over the process for voiding electronic NOVs and does not have a reliable handheld terminal (HHT) inventory listing. We also identified internal control weaknesses with the issuance of manual NOVs, resulting in NOVs not accounted for or not submitted to ECB.

Audit Recommendations

To address the audit issues, we made nine recommendations, including that DSNY should:

• Implement procedures to ensure that NOV disposition and dismissal information is tracked and reported, allowing it to develop strategies to reduce NOV dismissal rates and improve staff training.
• Ensure that supervisors do not have the ability to both void NOVs and approve the voids.
• Strengthen its controls over the HHTs and inventory records, and take appropriate action to ensure that all HHTs are accounted for and their location and disposition is accurately documented.
• Ensure that the Logging Unit complies with operating procedures to help ensure that all manual NOVs are accounted for and transmitted to ECB.

Agency Response

DSNY officials generally agreed with eight of the nine recommendations, disagreeing only with the recommendation that it create an interface between DSNY’s and ECB’s computer systems. However, DSNY’s response is puzzling; it appears that the agency is being disingenuous in its response. DSNY officials claim to only partially agree with seven of the audit’s recommendations yet fail to identify the portions of those recommendations with which they take issue. In one instance, DSNY curiously claims to only “partially” agree with a recommendation that it ensure that NOVs are issued in accordance with its own procedures. Notwithstanding DSNY’s claims of only partial agreement with the audit’s recommendations, its statements that it has already acted upon or addressed many of them—as well as its failure to identify those portions with which it does not agree—clearly indicates agreement with these recommendations.

In its response, DSNY also states that it disagrees with the findings that it does not track NOV dispositions and dismissals and that its HHT inventory records are unreliable. However, the agency provided no credible new evidence that had not already been addressed in this report. Furthermore, by stating that it has taken steps to implement the recommendations relating to these findings, DSNY acknowledges the validity of these findings.