Audit Report on the Department of Parks and Recreation’s Monitoring of Its Employees Who Use E-ZPasses and Parking Permits While Driving City-Owned or Personally-Owned Vehicles on City Business

This audit was conducted to determine whether the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation (Parks) properly monitors its employees who use City-provided E-ZPasses and parking permits while driving City-owned or personally-owned vehicles on City business in accordance with applicable rules and regulations.

Parks is responsible for maintaining a 29,900-acre municipal park system.  As part of that function, it operates 800 athletic fields and nearly 1,000 playgrounds, 1,800 basketball courts, 550 tennis courts, 67 public pools, 51 recreational facilities, 15 nature centers, 14 golf courses and 14 miles of beaches.  Parks’ fleet consists of 2,943 vehicles, including 156 forestry vehicles, 108 packers, and 92 beach terrain vehicles.^[1]  As of March 2017, Parks had 7,646 employees, including Park Rangers, supervisors, recreation employees and life guards, and an operating budget of $548 million.  Parks has authorized 5,303 employees to use agency vehicles and E-ZPasses issued by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) for City business.  In Fiscal Year 2016, Parks spent approximately $1.2 million for E-ZPass usage.

Audit Findings and Conclusions

During the audit period (January 1, 2014 through March 30, 2017), we found that Parks properly monitors the use of E-ZPasses by its authorized drivers in accordance with applicable rules and regulations.  It maintains the logs or trip tickets detailing agency E-ZPass usage as required by the City’s and Parks’ policies and procedures, and keeps accurate track of its E-ZPass tags.  In addition, we found that Parks was not using any vehicles on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) recall list.  However, we found that Parks does not properly enforce the City’s requirements for issuing agency parking permits.

Audit Recommendations

To address the findings raised in this audit, we made the following seven recommendations:

• Parks should continue to properly monitor, track and recoup its E-ZPass usage, as required by the City of New York’s City Vehicle Driver Handbook.
• Parks should ensure that all agency-issued parking permit requests are filled out properly, with the specific agency business use.
• Parks employees who were previously issued agency-issued parking permits should resubmit their requests to comply with the policy.
• Parks should continue to ensure that any vehicles on the NHTSA recall list are not used by its employees.
• Parks should continue to ensure that all of its vehicles on the NHTSA recall list are repaired or returned to the manufacturer for repairs, as required by its warranties.
• Parks should continue to confirm that its vehicle dealers and manufacturers regularly contact NHTSA to inform the agency of repairs or recalls that have been cleared, so the database can be updated.
• Parks should continue to retire vehicles that pose a safety hazard to its employees.

Agency Response

In its written response, Parks generally agreed with the audit’s findings and stated, “We are pleased that your Report concluded that Parks properly monitors the use of E-ZPasses by our authorized drivers in accordance with applicable rules and regulations; that Parks maintains the logs or trip tickets detailing agency E-ZPass usage as required by the City’s and Parks’ policies and procedures; that Parks keeps accurate track of our E-ZPass tags; and that Parks was not using any vehicles on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) recall list.  We also acknowledge your finding regarding the issuance of agency parking permits and will take steps to address this issue. . . .  Finally, Parks wishes to thank you and your audit staff for the time and effort devoted to completing this Report.”

[1] Of the 2,943 vehicles in Parks’ fleet, 1,985 are driven on the road and have plates and Vehicle Identification Numbers (VIN) (e.g., passenger vehicles, utility vans, trucks) and the remaining 958 are off-road vehicles with no plates (e.g., trailers, golf carts, front-end loaders, and pressure washers.)