KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Kansas City, Missouri, City Auditor's Office completed an audit on illegal dumping after requests from citizens for improvements.
The audit will be presented to the city council at 2 p.m. Thursday.
In the audit, 2,700 illegal dumping service requests submitted through the 311 system submitted between February and August 2021 were analyzed.
The audit found it takes an average of 24 days for Public Works to respond to the 311 requests and that there is incomplete data because requests submitted through other sources are not consolidated with the 311 requests.
The lack of consolidation resulted in duplicated and missed requests and inequalities in response.
The audit also found the department doesn't analyze response times, which leads to a lack of public accountability and informed management decisions.
There is also a lack of implementation of engagement strategies listed in the Citywide Business Plan, according to the audit.
Those strategies haven't been implemented since 2017, according to the audit.
"Department staff told us these strategies have not been developed or they were not aware of them. Management stated that there was no funding to develop a formal anti-illegal dumping campaign," the audit read.
From the findings, the auditor's office came up with four main goals for Public Works:
- All illegal dumping service requests should be consolidated in the 311 system.
- The director of public works should look at illegal dumping response times and report them.
- The department should develop a written set of response time goals in order to communicate with residents and hold staff accountable.
- An anti-illegal dumping campaign should be developed to improve community engagement.
Currently, the illegal dumping program has a budget of $2.1 million and is made up of 22 employees, according to the audit. Some illegal dumping cleanups are contracted out.
Surveys show only 20% of city residents are satisfied with the city's response to illegal dumping, the lowest satisfaction rate in six years.
The audit was presented to the director of public works on March 24, 2022.
A response from the director was included in the audit. They wrote that they agree with all of the goals laid out by the auditor's office.
In order to achieve those, all non-311 cleanup requests will be entered into the system within one business day, the department will look at hiring more staff and code enforcers, response times will be analyzed and goals developed and the department will work with the Mid-America Regional Council to develop an anti-illegal dumping campaign with one employee solely dedicated to community engagement.
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