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Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr. today issued a follow-up audit
to his 2003 audit of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s
(DOHMH) Enhanced Pest Control Program. The follow-up audit found
that although DOHMH had made some improvements, it still does not
have adequate procedures in place to ensure that rodent issues are
addressed in a timely manner, and is not adequately monitoring duplicate
complaints.
“New Yorkers depend upon the Department of Health and Mental
Hygiene to tackle our City’s rodent problem,” Thompson
said. “While the Department of Health has made progress in
targeting problem areas, there is still room for improvement to
make this a more effective program. It is especially important that
New Yorkers rodent concerns be addressed in a timely manner and
that DOHMH adequately monitor complaints to ensure that they are
properly addressed.”
DOHMH provides a wide variety of programs that promote the health
and mental well-being of City residents. DOHMH’s Office of
Pest Control Services (PCS) enforces the health code regulations
pertaining to rodent infestation. The Enhanced Pest Control Program,
which was in place during the Comptroller’s previous audit
and was intended to identify specific geographic areas with rodent
problems, was discontinued in 2003. In September 2003, DOHMH instituted
the Rodent Control Initiative Program (Rodent Initiative), which
targeted three areas that were believed to have the worst rodent
infestation problems - portions of North Central Brooklyn, South
Bronx, and East Harlem.
The June 2003 Audit Report on the Enhanced Pest Control Program
of the Department of Health showed that DOHMH had improved its effectiveness
in addressing rodent infestation by targeting problem areas. However,
that audit also found that DOHMH had weaknesses in the administration
of the Enhanced Program and with its follow-up and remediation practices
for properties where pest control violations were identified. Specifically,
PCS regional offices did not consistently comply with the informal
procedures of the Enhanced Program and there were inconsistencies
in the manner in which each office administered the program, hindering
the agency’s ability to monitor its overall effectiveness
and identify areas for improvement. PCS also consistently fell short
of meeting timeliness goals for performing pest control activities.
This audit, which covered July 1, 2004 through December 31, 2004,
was a follow-up to the 2003 audit to determine whether DOHMH had
implemented the four recommendations made and had corrected the
conditions identified in that audit.
Of the four recommendations made in the previous audit, DOHMH implemented
three of them. This audit found that DOHMH had included relevant
functions in its PCS database that made the pest control process
more automated as recommended, thereby allowing for faster processing
of pest control work. Further, this audit found that the three regional
offices that participate in the Rodent Initiative used the PCS database
to cluster and track pest control activities that were performed
in the program. Lastly, this audit found that supervisors reviewed
compliance inspection reports and ensured that extermination and/or
cleanup efforts were recommended when properties failed inspections.
Despite implementing most of the recommendations, DOHMH still failed
to address the fourth recommendation, by failing to put adequate
procedures in place to ensure that complaints are addressed in a
timely manner. This audit found that the PCS Draft Policy and Procedures
Manual, Volume II – Operations manual no longer delineates
a specific number of days as its goals for responding to rodent
complaints, except in the case of rodent bites. Instead the manual
now has as its response goal: “to respond to rodent complaints
as soon as possible after the receipt of the complaint.”
Previously the manual indicated a 10-day goal timeline for the
initial inspection following the receipt of a complaint. This audit
found that on average PCS took 30 days to perform an initial inspection
of the 8,484 complaints it received, and within that average, the
time ranged greatly depending upon the regional office. For example,
the average ranged from a low of 18 days for the Staten Island office
to a high of 42 days for the North Brooklyn office.
Further, the recent audit showed a new issue in that DOHMH did
not properly close out open job tickets. During the scope of this
audit, DOHMH generated 14,190 job tickets for complaints that were
received, of which 5,706 were categorized as “Total Complaints
with No Action.” Of the 5,706 complaints, 4,838 job tickets
were identified as “job complete and/or duplicate” complaints
and 868 fell into categories such as street areas that required
extermination and complaints that were not addressed for various
reasons.
Thompson said in his audit: “In order to minimize the possibility
that complaints may not receive a response, and considering the
volume of duplicate complaints listed in the response reports, PCS
needs to ensure that there are detailed and consistent procedures
in place to address duplicate complaints, both on the database and
in operations.”
To address the issues that still exist, the Comptroller made two
new recommendations asking that DOHMH:
• Modify its Pest Control Services Policy and Procedures
Manual, Volume II—Operations to include specific time requirements
for the various stages of the pest control remediation process,
detailed procedures for handling duplicate complaints, and procedures
for tracking workload.
• Ensure that the monitoring tools available on the database
for tracking the work load and productivity of the regional offices
contain accurate and usable information, and that the personnel
in the regional offices are using these tools to monitor performance.
In its response, DOHMH agreed with the Comptroller’s recommendations.
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