Letter Report on the Department of Transportation’s Controls over the Processing of Notices of Violations by the Highway Inspection Quality Assurance Unit

Letter Report on the Department of Transportation’s Controls over the Processing of Notices of Violations by the Highway Inspection Quality Assurance Unit

June 30, 2014

LETTER REPORT IN BRIEF

Introduction

The audit determined whether the Department of Transportation’s (“DOT’s”) Highway Inspection Quality Assurance (“HIQA”) unit has adequate controls in place to ensure that Notices of Violations (“NOVs”) are properly processed and whether the unit has made adequate efforts to identify and eliminate deficiencies in its issuance process that may contribute to NOV dismissals.

NOVs are issued when there are violations of laws, rules, regulations, specifications, or stipulations.  DOT NOVs are issued by two units, HIQA and the Sidewalk Management Unit.  HIQA enforces the rules that govern the way utilities, plumbers, contractors, home owners and governmental agencies work on the City’s streets and highways.   The Sidewalk Management Unit issues NOVs to private and commercial property owners for defective sidewalks.   NOVs issued by HIQA carry penalties that range from $50 to $5,000 depending upon the violation and fall under the jurisdiction of the Environmental Control Board (ECB), an administrative tribunal, which is a division of the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings.    NOVs issued by the Sidewalk Management Unit carry no fines and are not adjudicated by ECB.  Rather, a lien is placed on the property and the NOV is filed with the County Clerk, where it remains until the Clerk receives official notification from the City that satisfactory repairs have been made.

HIQA issued 28,165 NOVs during Fiscal Year 2013, which accounted for 70 percent of the NOVs issued by DOT. 

Results

The audit found that HIQA has adequate controls in place to process NOVs.  The audit identified only minor weaknesses which we found resulted mainly from data entry errors and issues with the timely processing and supervisory review for a small number of NOVs.   DOT officials have begun working on a system to electronically issue NOVs, which is intended to reduce the data entry errors.  The audit also found that DOT has reasonable controls in place to identify and eliminate deficiencies in its issuance process that may contribute to NOV dismissals. 

Because no material weaknesses were found in DOT’s controls, the audit makes no recommendations to the agency.