Audit Report on the Effectiveness of the Department of Education in Following Up and Resolving School-Bus-Related Complaints

AUDIT REPORT IN BRIEF

The Department of Education (DOE) provides education to children from pre-kindergarten to 12th grade. The Office of Pupil Transportation (OPT) is responsible for ensuring that clean, safe, and reliable bus service is provided to and from school for students who are New York City residents. OPT maintains a Customer Service Unit (CSU) to address transportation concerns raised by callers and to assist in the resolution of complaints. CSU agents are responsible for recording all school-bus-related complaints received by telephone into a Call Recording System, which is to be used to track and manage complaints.

According to the Call Recording System, a total of 376,257 school-age complaints were recorded during the period July 1, 2006, through January 15, 2008, and a total of 815 pre-k complaints were recorded during the period July 1, 2007, through January 15, 2008. Our audit determined whether the OPT is effectively recording, following up, resolving, and closing school-bus-related complaints.

Audit Findings and Conclusions

Based on our observations of CSU agents and our review of complaint data from the Call Recording System, we conclude that, in general, OPT did not effectively record, follow up, resolve, and close school-bus-related complaints. As a result, there is limited assurance that complaints brought to the attention of OPT regarding unreliable and or unsafe transportation of children are properly identified, determined to be valid, and resolved in a timely and appropriate manner.

OPT indicated that it is in the process of correcting its shortcomings. Nevertheless, we identified several areas of concern, including inadequate procedures for following up, resolving, and closing complaints; and inconsistent handling of complaints by CSU agents that resulted in complaint descriptions not always being complete and clear and assigned complaint numbers not always being provided to callers. We found that resolution descriptions indicated on the print-outs from the Call Recording System were not always detailed and precise and were sometimes blank, and that the resolutions were not actually resolutions as such, but notes documenting the progress in following up the complaints. In addition: there is no tracking system in place to record written complaints received; informational and transfer calls that do not require follow up are inappropriately assigned complaint numbers; and the same complaint is recorded more than once and assigned different complaint numbers.

Based on our findings, we make 17 recommendations, including that OPT should:

• Develop and implement adequate written procedures that are sufficiently detailed for all of its units when following up, resolving, and closing school-bus-related complaints.

• Ensure that complaints received are recorded fully and clearly, as required by the Customer Service OPT Overview, to avoid ambiguity and to ensure timely resolution.

• Ensure that complaints are adequately resolved and require that resolution descriptions in the Call Recording System be detailed and clear. In addition, an authorized individual should be responsible for periodically reviewing the resolutions to ensure that they comply with guidelines established by OPT.

• Develop a tracking system to capture written complaints and ensure that they are recorded promptly, fully, and accurately. Information relating to the resolutions to these complaints should also be recorded.

DOE Response

In their response, DOE officials agreed with 15 of the 17 recommendations.