Toronto AG report finds ‘deficiencies’ in tracking, completing city park repairs
A recent report from Toronto’s auditor general finds deficiencies with how city staff respond to — and more importantly track — repair needs in city parks.
The report, which went to the city’s audit committee this week, is part two on an extensive audit of the municipal park’s branch. Part one, released in the fall, looked at the efficiency of daily park maintenance and found significant issues, including GPS data showing workers spending less time actually working than they said they were.
Part two of the audit focuses on inspections, repairs and complaints. It looks at whether maintenance needs are being identified, prioritized and addressed in a timely manner and finds several areas for improvement.
A lack of coordinated and efficient tracking of what work is being done — and whether issues are actually being resolved — is central to the issues identified by Auditor General Tara Anderson.
“Requiring staff to adopt a standardized format to document their activities and to provide a clear accounting of how the time is spent each shift, helps to ensure that tasks are completed as assigned and resources are used effectively,” Anderson wrote in the report.
City management has agreed to implement all the recommendations.
Routine work
The city’s parks branch maintains 1,500 city parks. Its 205 permanent and 55 seasonal technical services staff are responsible for preventative maintenance and non-capital repairs, like leaking fountains, broken picnic benches and damaged playground equipment.
Work that needs to be done is identified through regular inspections, sometimes flagged by other staff or comes in through resident complaints. But there is no centralized system that tracks that work, the audit finds — nor are there standards for how quickly issues should be dealt with.
The auditor general’s office randomly reviewed 73 repair requests stemming from park inspections and found more than half had work orders issued within 100 days. But 44 per cent of repair requests had issues, including some instances in which no work order was issued at all. In some cases, the auditor general found that was due to the request being passed on to another division, but there is no integrated system to track if those issues were ever addressed.
While the audit was being conducted last year, city parks had 8,200 open work orders, dating between 2018 and July 2024.
A review of a sample of 30 of them, from the first half of last year, found 90 per cent were in fact complete, but had never been closed in the system.
Coun. Paula Fletcher, who sits on the audit committee, said
The lack of good record-keeping is concerning, said Coun. Paula Fletcher, who sits on the audit committee, but the “good news” is that most work is being done.
“If it was not doing the work and not signing the paper, I think we’d have a different situation here,” Fletcher said.
“We don’t want to bury people in paper work” but some is needed, said Coun. Stephen Holyday, who chairs the committee — in particular to track potential trends.
Toronto’s auditor general has released a report that found city crews were over-reporting time spent maintaining local parks. Metro Morning host David Common spoke with Coun. Brad Bradford about how the report might affect public trust, and the city’s next steps.
‘Colossal management fail’
The biggest concerns from members of the audit committee discussing the report has to do with a lack of integration with 311.
Complaints that come in through 311 are sent to local managers, but not tracked in a centralized way, the auditor general’s report finds, and there is no follow up with residents, or way for them to know if work has been completed.
“It’s a head scratcher how it all works,” said Fletcher, calling the lack of integration with 311 a “colossal management fail.”
Work is underway to roll out a new electronic system which will integrate work assignments, tracking and 311 requests all in one place, city staff say.
They also say the city is developing a system to track 311 complaints through to completion.
Working is underway on other auditor general recommendations, including those from the audit’s first part, Parks and Recreation general manager Howie Dayton told the committee.
He told councillors the department has been holding meetings with supervisors, the union and frontline staff in an effort to change workplace culture.
“We’re making sure that staff across the organization understand the findings of the audit, the seriousness of them, and public expectation,” Dayton said.
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