Final Letter Audit Report on the Department of Investigation’s Monitoring of Its Employees Who Drive City-Owned or Personally-Owned Vehicles on City Business
Executive summary
This Final Letter Report concerns the New York City Comptroller’s audit of the monitoring by the Department of Investigation (“DOI”) of its employees who drive City-owned or personally-owned vehicles on City business. The objective of this audit was to determine whether DOI is effectively monitoring such employees’ driving. Our audit found that DOI properly monitors the driving behavior of its authorized drivers. This opinion does not include our review of DOI’s monitoring and controls over its drivers’ vehicle usage, which will be discussed in a separate report.
New York City requires that employees who operate City-owned or personally-owned vehicles to conduct City business must exercise reasonable care when driving them. That requirement is outlined in the City of New York’s “City Vehicle Driver Handbook” (“Handbook”). Agency heads, working through their Agency Transportation Coordinators (“ATCs”), must ensure that all employees who are assigned a City-owned vehicle, either for full-time use or temporary use, are authorized by their respective agencies to drive. The ATC must also ensure that each driver has a valid license. An employee’s driver’s license must be issued by New York State (“NYS”) unless the employee is exempt from City residency requirements. In that case, the authorized driver must have a valid license from the state where he or she resides, and in all cases the license must have the appropriate classification for the vehicle which an employee will be driving on City business. The Handbook further specifies that City agencies must establish programs that promote driving safety along with proper training in the use of motor vehicles.
City agencies participating in the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles (“DMV”) License Event Notification System (“LENS”) program are separately required to monitor the driving behavior of their employees. Pursuant to the LENS program, each participating agency’s ATC will be notified of any event that affects the status of an agency driver’s license, such as expiration, the accumulation of points, an accident, and charges against an employee for driving while impaired or under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Monitoring such LENS notifications enables the ATC to ensure that only employees with valid licenses are driving on City business.
In January 2014, the City launched the Vision Zero Action Plan (“Plan”), a comprehensive initiative to reduce driver, bicyclist and pedestrian injuries and fatalities in New York City. The Plan detailed steps to improve street safety, including lowering the speed limit from 30 miles per hour to 25 miles per hour and increasing the penalties for driving with a suspended license and leaving the scene of an accident. The Plan also proposed increasing the number of red light cameras and installing additional traffic devices to control speeding. When the Vision Zero Action Plan was released in 2014, it outlined 63 separate initiatives that the Mayor’s Office and a number of City Agencies undertook to reduce death and serious injury on the streets and roadways of New York City. As of October 2017, the Vision Zero Task Force has added an additional 88 new initiatives (40 new initiatives were introduced in 2015, 22 were added in 2016 and 26 in 2017) for a total of 151 initiatives. With respect to City employees, the Plan implemented a City-wide defensive driving program and added safety-related equipment and devices to City vehicles.
Results
We found that DOI effectively monitors the driving behavior of its authorized drivers. The agency subscribes to the DMV’s LENS program, receives its updates, and in a timely manner revokes the privileges of drivers who have suspended or revoked licenses, as prescribed by the applicable regulations. Based on each driver’s driving history and driving abstract, DOI evaluates each driver and determines whether he or she should be allowed to drive a City vehicle. For those employees who did not maintain an appropriate license status DOI has policies and procedures to take appropriate disciplinary action, which could include termination. In addition, DOI takes steps to ensure that employees who do not live within New York State adhere to applicable state motor vehicle regulations, and the agency ensures that its licensed drivers have the appropriate license endorsements or classifications to drive their assigned vehicles. Moreover, DOI provides its employees with a required safety awareness program.
The audit recommends that DOI should continue to monitor the driving behavior of its authorized drivers and promote driver awareness and public safety programs, as required.
In its response, DOI agreed with the report’s findings and stated, “The above audit revealed no recommendations and found that the Department of Investigation effectively monitors the driving behavior of its authorized drivers.”