New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr. today announced the results of an audit that found the City Department of Transportation (DOT) does not have adequate measures in place to ensure that potholes are repaired in an efficient and timely manner.

The audit found that the agency lacks a useful standard to guide its pothole repair operations and measure its performance. The audit says that the DOT does not accurately track potholes already repaired and found that 34 percent of the repair orders assigned had already been completed. It also noted that the DOT follows an arbitrarily set, informal standard to complete 65 percent of its repair orders within 30 days. This standard is used only for reporting purposes in the Mayor's Management Report (MMR).

"The DOT has no benchmark to ensure that all potholes are repaired in a timely manner, and that pothole repair orders do not remain open for lengthy periods of time," Thompson said. "Whether you're a driver, pedestrian, or cyclist, you should be able to travel anywhere in the city without experiencing a problem with potholes. The Department of Transportation must do a better job to make our roadways safe."

The Comptroller reviewed 1,788 open pothole repair orders during three months in Fiscal Year 2001 (December, April, and May), interviewed DOT personnel and accompanied work crew teams to sites to observe daily routines.

Auditors found that the DOT handled 1,044 of the 1,788 - or 58 percent - of pothole repair orders within the agency's informal 30-day standard, and that, as of April 16, 2002, DOT had completed 1,774 of the sampled orders, but 14 were still open. It took an average of 57 days to repair the 1,774 potholes.

Additionally, DOT's MMR-reporting goal - to complete 65% of repair orders within 30 days - only applies to those repairs completed within its 30 day timeline and fails to account for the remaining 35 percent of the pothole repair orders. As a result, it distorts DOT's performance in terms of the overall timeliness of all repairs.

"DOT misrepresents its performance, in terms of the overall timeliness of all repairs," Thompson said. "Failing to remedy these problems puts the City at risk. Significant delays increases the City's vulnerability to settlements and judgments resulting from accidents caused by potholes."

For example, for the orders in our sample, the Bronx had a higher percentage of repairs completed within 30 days than Manhattan - 53 percent compared to Manhattan's 40 percent - although the average number of days that the completed repair orders had been open for the Bronx orders was more than twice the average for Manhattan - 98 days and 42 days, respectively.

On average, it took 98 days to repair potholes in The Bronx, 73 in Brooklyn, 42 in Manhattan, 38 on Staten Island, and 30 in Queens. DOT's response was swiftest in the month of April - when it took an average 37 days to repair potholes - and slowest in December - when it took an average 82 days.

The audit found that the agency does not make certain that all completed repairs are entered into its database - which has meant that crews often have been dispatched to repair potholes that were already fixed - and the agency doesn't prioritize pothole complaints based on their age.

During five visits to sites with work crews, investigators found that 34 percent of the repair orders assigned to them had been completed. Moreover, 38, or 30 percent of the 126 potholes repaired during those visits were not recorded in a database the next day. In other instances, individual repairs sometimes were counted twice or three times, raising questions about the accuracy of productivity data supplied for the Mayor's Management Report.

To remedy the problems, Comptroller Thompson issued eight recommendations, including:

• Establish an operational standard for completing all pothole repairs (not just the 65 percent covered by the current Mayor's Management Report-standard) within a specific period of time and gear operations to meet that goal.
• Prioritize pothole repair orders by age, when feasible while taking into account safety.
• Record all completed pothole repairs, including those that are identified and repaired immediately, on proper documentation.
• Modify its reporting system to ensure that personnel cannot enter additional data for closed repair orders.
• Ensure that only completed repairs (not temporary ones) are included in the productivity figures for pothole repairs submitted to the Mayor's Office of Operations.
  
  The DOT, in its response, generally agreed with the audit's recommendations but disagreed with the finding related to its lack of a useful time standard to guide its pothole repair operations.

A copy of the audit is available on the Comptroller's website: www.comptroller.nyc.gov.

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