Audit Report on the New York City Fire Department’s Performance Indicators as Reported in the Mayor’s Management Report

AUDIT REPORT IN BRIEF

REPORT IN BRIEF

Our audit objective was to determine whether the New York City Fire Department’s (FDNY) controls are adequate to ensure that its performance indicators as reported in the Mayor’s Management Report are accurate and reliable.  This audit concentrated on the following four critical indicators: 1) average response time to structural fires; 2) average response time to structural fires and medical emergencies by fire unit; 3) average response time to life-threatening medical emergencies by ambulance unit; and 4) combined response time to life-threatening medical emergencies by ambulance and fire units.

The Mayor’s Management Report (MMR) serves as a public report card on City services affecting the lives of New Yorkers and mainly covers the operations of City agencies reporting directly to the Mayor.  FDNY responds to fires, public safety and medical emergencies, natural disasters, and terrorist acts to protect lives and property in the City.  As reported in the MMR, the FDNY’s Key Public Service Areas include protecting lives and property from fire hazards and other emergency conditions and providing quick and efficient responses to medical emergencies. 

Audit Findings and Conclusions

Overall, we found that the FDNY’s controls are adequate to ensure that its performance indicators as reported in the MMR, regarding the four critical indicators we reviewed on response times, are accurate and reliable.  However, due to a policy change that occurred in May 2009, the time it took the FDNY Alarm Receipt Dispatchers (ARDs) to process calls, which are now handled by the New York City Police Department’s (NYPD) Unified Call Takers (UCTs), is no longer included in the fire response time calculations.  As a result, starting in the Fiscal Year 2010 MMR—the first full fiscal year affected by this policy change—the fire response time statistics for two of the four critical indicators reviewed in this audit are no longer comparable to the response time statistics reported for prior years. 

In addition, we found that the STARFIRE Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system does not require individual user identifications or passwords to access the system, except for the maintenance personnel who have the ability to modify data.  While the Emergency Medical Service (EMS) CAD system does require individual user identifications and passwords, FDNY did not disable the accounts for some of its users who are on extended leave or no longer employed by the FDNY.  The agency also assigned multiple EMS CAD system user identifications to the same individual.  Finally, we found that FDNY does not have written disaster recovery plans specifically for the STARFIRE CAD system or the data warehouse containing the data downloaded from both CAD systems. 

Audit Recommendations

Based on our findings, we make the following five recommendations, which are listed below.  FDNY should:

Determine the average processing time that was eliminated with the implementation of the UCT procedures and adjust either the prior years’ response times or the current year’s response times to make them comparable to one another.  If FDNY is unable to make these calculations, it should separately report the response time statistics using the pre- and post-UCT implementation methods.

Install user identifications and passwords for its non-maintenance personnel of the STARFIRE CAD system.

Ensure that access of employees whose services are terminated or on extended leave be removed from the EMS CAD system.

Periodically review the EMS CAD system users who have multiple user identifications to ensure that only individuals who currently need multiple user identifications have them.

Develop written disaster recovery plans for the STARFIRE CAD system and its data warehouse.

Agency Response

In their response, FDNY officials stated that they agreed with four of the audit’s five recommendations.  They disagreed with our recommendation that the FDNY account for the implementation of the UCT procedures in its reporting of average response times.