Letter Report On The Compliance Of The New York City Department Of Buildings With Local Law 65 Of 2015 Regarding Translation Of Business Owners Bill Of Rights As They Relate To Agency Inspections

Executive Summary

This Letter Report concerns the New York City Comptroller’s audit of the New York City Department of Buildings’ (DOB’s) compliance with Local Law 65 of 2015, which governs the translation of the Business Owner’s Bill of Rights as it relates to inspections by New York City agencies.  The objective of this audit was to determine whether DOB is complying with Local Law 65, which is intended to make City agencies’ business-inspection protocols and interactions accessible to immigrants and non-English speakers.  Our audit of DOB is one in a series of audits we are conducting of the City’s compliance with Local Law 65.

Audit Findings and Conclusions

Our audit found that DOB generally complied with Local Law 65.  Our review of DOB’s Language Access Plan dated 2018, which, as required by Local Law 30 of 2017, documents DOB’s steps to provide services to the LEP population it serves, found that DOB had made continuous efforts to provide meaningful language access during inspections for LEP customers.  Specifically, we found that DOB has a Business Owner’s Bill of Rights, which is prominently displayed through a PowerPoint presentation on a large screen in the office area.  The Business Owner’s Bill of Rights notifies individuals of their right to consistent enforcement of agency rules; compliment or complain about an inspector or inspectors; contest a notice of violation before the relevant local tribunal; an inspector who behaves in a professional and courteous manner; an inspector that can answer reasonable questions relating to the inspection; an inspector with a sound knowledge of the applicable laws, rules and regulations; access information in languages other than English; and request language interpretation services for agency inspections of the business.

Furthermore, the Business Owner’s Bill of Rights was fully translated into each of the 10 designated Citywide languages of LEP residents in New York City, and was available on DOB’s website.  We reviewed the Business Owner’s Bill of Rights and found that it notifies owners of their rights to:

1. Courteous and professional treatment by employees
2. Inspectors who are polite, professionally dressed, and properly identified
3. Information about how long inspections will take and the cost of all related fees
4. Knowledgeable inspectors who enforce agency rules uniformly
5. Receive information about agency rules from inspectors or other employees
6. Contest a violation through a hearing, trial or other relevant process
7. Request a review of inspection results or re-inspection as soon as possible
8. Receive explanation from inspectors on violation details and instructions for viewing inspection results
9. Access information in languages other than English and request language interpretation services for inspections
10. Comment, anonymously and without fear of retribution, on the performance or conduct of our employees

We also found that DOB trains its inspectors on the agency’s policies and procedures pertaining to providing language access services to individuals during inspections.  DOB updated its training manual and procedures in June 2018, and employees received the training as required by Local Law 65.  The training material describes DOB’s language access policies and procedures and the Citywide Interagency Language Access Protocol.  Additionally, DOB provides inspectors with Language Access flyers, which indicates the procedures to perform when interacting with LEP residents during inspections.  Furthermore, inspectors are equipped with an Interpretation Service Available sheet, informing LEP individuals of their right to free Language Assistance services during agency inspections.  We found that inspectors were trained on the use of the telephonic interpretation services through Language Line Services, LLC, and were able to communicate in languages other than English with the LEP clients during agency inspections.

During the auditors visits to DOB, when we communicated with inspectors in languages other than English we found that they were able to assist us.  The inspectors asked us to indicate on the “I speak card” what language we spoke and then took us to the language access phones to answer our questions or call the language access line so that we could speak to an operator to translate our questions.

Audit Recommendations

The audit recommended that DOB continue to maintain its compliance with Local Law 65 to ensure it effectively meets the needs of individuals with limited English proficiency when interacting with city inspectors.

Agency Response

In its response, DOB agreed with the audit and stated, “[t]he Department of Buildings agrees with your recommendation, and we are pleased that your audit determined that we are in compliance with Local Law 65. DOB will continue to maintain its compliance and continue to update our training manual and procedures to ensure the accessibility of our services.”