aby Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
An anonymous e-mail from a City employee to the Council Auditor’s Office led to a recent audit of the City’s Fleet Management Division. After a month of looking into the claims within the e-mail, Council Auditor Kirk Sherman’s office produced a seven-page report that details several problems within the division.
Most of those problems center on tire replacement and maintenance of city-owned vehicles. However, the No. 1 finding in the report involved signed, but blank, worksheets. Sherman said nothing his office found was of grave concern, but he did not like finding out that City employees were signing blank work orders — a practiced he likened to a private citizen giving the local mechanic their credit card and saying, just fix it.
“Nothing really jumped out, but the blank work tablets bothered me,” said Sherman. “Maybe they were just in a rush and need to slow down.”
The audit also revealed problems with tire replacement on City vehicles. Specifically, the audit cited an instance where the Jacksonville Fire & Rescue Department was billed twice for the same tires, resulting in a $2,252.93 overcharge.
Routine maintenance is also an area of concern. According to background information within the audit pertaining to oil changes and other routine maintenance, there are three levels of service – A, B and C. Levels A and B service consist of an oil change, lube and filter while level C includes an added complete safety check. When these services are performed depends on the vehicle and which City agency uses the vehicle.
The audit revealed the following:
• 79 times level A or B service was performed before the scheduled mileage or time interval
• 45 times level C service was performed before the scheduled mileage or time interval
• 15 times vehicles were given oil changes, lube and filter service as part of level C service despite recently receiving the same service during scheduled level A or B services
• 75 times the mileage policy for level A or B service was exceeded and four times the time interval was exceeded
• 54 times the level C mileage policy was exceeded
• 31 times a level A or B service was performed instead of level C
Sherman said the City’s relatively new method of posting anonymous to his office has generated some interest. This tip came in Sept. 11, 2006 while another came in Nov. 20, 2006. Sherman said the tips made sense.
“This one piqued our interest and we thought it was one we could handle moderately expeditiously,” said Sherman, who assigned an auditor who is also a big fan of cars to the case. “We had someone on it for a month or so. It was interesting to see how that department works.”
Sherman said it would be hard to put a dollar amount on the duplication of services, but the audit did highlight procedural issues that need to be addressed.
“The system needs to be tightened up,” he said. “To sign a blank work tablet, that’s just poor.
“This was a good audit to put out. It’s manageable and should pay dividends by lowering repair costs.”
Sherman said his staff will follow up in 12-18 months to assure its recommendations are being practiced.
The audit contains four official “findings” and four recommendations from the Auditor’s Office. Sherman said Fleet Management Division Chief Sam Houston had a good response to the recommendations and had a good attitude once the audit was complete. Houston did not return a call seeking comment, but the audit does contain his office’s responses to Sherman’s four findings.
Houston indicated his office will establish a standard operating procedure to deal with work orders and tire replacements. One of the other findings was that Fleet Management does not keep an “accurate record of the type and the number of tires removed for disposal.” Houston indicated his office will now keep a “tire disposal log” that will be broken into two types of tires: automotive and trucks. In response to vehicle maintenance issues, Houston said his office will implement a system of e-mailing vehicle coordinators on a weekly basis informing them of vehicles that are due maintenance. On a more drastic note, Fleet “will cutoff the fuel supply for non-emergency vehicles that are more than ninety (90) days overdue for a safety inspection after the agency is notified.”