Watchdog: Publicize city audit process

Boston officials are poised to conduct top-to-bottom reviews of two major departments as part of an auditing process that has uncovered millions of dollars in uncollected money and massive overtime increases in city offices.

But a watchdog said the city needs to publicly track how it responds to any recommendations for change.

“It’s good to have audits but there needs to be more public process: here are the recommendations that were made, here is what we want to implement, here’s the status, here’s the benefit the city has received,” said Sam Tyler, president of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau.

“If it’s just a matter of the audit being released and nothing happening, what was the point?”

The city this spring will hire outside groups to review the Inspectional Services Department, which has 227 employees, and the Boston Public Health Commission, which has 777, as part of an ongoing review of all city departments.

An audit of the old Boston Redevelopment Authority in 2014 found the agency had failed to collect millions of dollars in rent. A 2015 audit of the Boston Police Department found overtime costs jumped by $15 million in four years. Officials said last year’s budget, created after the BPD audit, reduced overtime costs.

City Chief Financial Officer David Sweeney said the audits are intended to review departments that had not seen major change since the Menino administration. While they could lead to department reorganization, he said they were not intended to reduce staff.

“The overwhelming majority of these findings have pointed to greater need for investment in some areas and tighter controls in others,” Sweeney said. “We don’t issue these audits with the goal of reducing the number of employees.”