Voided tickets draw concern from investigators in latest city audit
By Joel Wittnebel/The Oshawa Express
The latest in a series of deep dives into city processes, this time the city’s administrative fine system, has found that a lack of set procedures could be leading to internal confusion, and a lack of foresight could be preventing the city from making the most of information it’s receiving.
On Feb. 26, councillors heard from KPMG regarding the results of the recently completed audit into Oshawa’s Administrative Monetary Penalty (AMP) system, which manages the tickets for infractions to city bylaws.
According to Tony Malfara with KPMG, the auditors were left with “significant assurance” that the AMP system is operating as it should, pointing to the fact that Oshawa is one of the best in the province when it comes to such a system.
“The Corporation has made great strides in developing this system as a way to speed up the hearings process for minor infractions and is considered one of the leading municipalities in the province in this regard,” the report reads.
With that noted, the audit did result in seven recommendations relating to areas where the city could improve its processes, including six items labelled as “medium risk” and one item considered “low risk.”
The areas of improvement include adequately documenting the polices and procedures of the AMP program, improving the software used by officers in the field, better analyzing trends in the AMP system, and improving the municipal law enforcement (MLE) processes for the screening and hearing process.
Perhaps most pressing was the identification of what KPMG labelled as “inconsistencies” in the processes and manner in which invalid tickets were being voided.
“The tickets were not booked in the correct category, or tickets were being voided by administrative staff on behalf of management but without formal (by-law) authorization and approval,” the report reads.
It was explained to councillors that these voided tickets occur for a variety of reasons, including when an officer makes an error while writing a ticket, or forgetting to sign off on a ticket, or perhaps the driver of a car returns to the vehicle as the officer is writing the ticket and it’s then cancelled. The issue arises when the officer and management go to file the tickets later on.
According to data from KPMG, 54,251 tickets were issued during the study period (2016, and January to September of 2017), and of those, 3,431 were cancelled and voided. Of the voided tickets, approximately 40 per cent of them (1,372) were issued with an error. With that said, 90 per cent of those errors were identified on site with a new ticket being immediately issued.
For Jerry Conlin, the director of municipal law enforcement and licensing services, it’s a matter of needing to “tighten up” the city’s processes and management has identified the need to improve the officer system. Currently, plans are in place to ensure that the system allows for proper classification of voided tickets by the first quarter of next year.
Also of concern to KPMG was the lack of data tracking and trend mapping that the city is doing with the information from the AMP program.
“The data and information collected from the public is not used to identify trends or issues in the service provided and formulate action plans,” the report reads.
This is particularly concerning when the city appears to have recurring issues that are not being addressed despite repeated concerns.
“Some trends and issues noted included calls not being answered by MLE staff in a timely manner in line with service standards,” the report reads, noting that other trends included repeated concerns with certain types of tickets.
“There’s no analysis or limited analysis,” Malfara told councillors.
To that end, staff have acknowledged the need to begin tracking information and will start this year in working with Service Oshawa to better formulate methods for tracking information.
“There are alway challenges with any process, but I can tell you, compared to other municipalities, this city has taken the lead in the province of Ontario,” says Mayor John Henry of the AMP system.
The same sentiment was shared by Councillor Doug Sanders, who also pointed to the importance of conducting such audits.
“I think that’s an important thing to do, once in a while, we do fall behind because we get caught up in our daily lives, but I think staff are doing the best they can.”