Audit Report on the Timeliness of Case Adjudications at the Bronx Office of the Environmental Control Board

AUDIT REPORT IN BRIEF

This audit determined whether hearings in the Bronx office of the Environmental Control Board (ECB) are being adjudicated in a timely manner. ECB adjudicates “quality of life” violations, including clean street, health, building, fire safety, and air and noise pollution cases. ECB has full-time hearings offices in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens. The Bronx office is open for hearings four days a week, while the Staten Island office is open for hearings two days a week. The ECB Bronx office conducted 10,742 (10.4%) of the 103,713 ECB case hearings held Citywide between July 1, 2004, and December 31, 2004. We received an allegation letter on March 17, 2004 that asserted that the ECB Bronx office had not been issuing hearing decisions in a timely manner.

Audit Findings and Conclusions

The Environmental Control Board did not ensure timely case adjudications in the Bronx office during calendar year 2004. As of October 21, 2004, there were 4,891 cases listed on the Bronx office ECB Overdue Action Report. For 35 percent of these cases, the last ECB action on the case occurred in 2003 or earlier. Twenty-seven of these cases go back as far as the 1996 to 1999 time period. Delays in issuing hearing decisions do a disservice to respondents and may result in lost revenue for the City.

Our audit identified the following aspects of ECB’s management of case adjudications in the Bronx office that contributed to the significant backlog of cases.

• ECB did not effectively use its ECB Overdue Action Report to monitor the progress of its cases.

• The ECB Bronx office did not sufficiently staff or manage the hearings process to ensure the timely resolution of cases.

• The administrative law judges (ALJs) in the ECB Bronx office lacked sufficient computer instruction.

Audit Recommendations

To address these issues, the audit makes the following recommendations:

• ECB should maximize the use of the ECB Overdue Action Report to identify those cases that are awaiting adjudication and then ensure that timely action is taken on those cases.

• ECB should not enter default judgments in the Automated Information Management System (AIMS) on cases that have not been fully adjudicated.

• ECB should ensure that all of its adjudication files are properly stored and readily available.

• ECB should conduct a study of the need for one or more additional full-time ALJs in the Bronx office. The study should include a review of whether the office should gradually assume the responsibility to review its own case decisions.

• ECB should provide additional computer instruction to the ALJs.

ECB Response

On May 24, 2005, we submitted a draft report to ECB officials with a request for comments. We received a written response from ECB on June 1, 2005. In its response, ECB generally agreed with the audit’s findings and recommendations and stated that it will work to implement the recommendations in the near future.