The city of San Diego will make numerous changes to how it tracks and reports pothole repairs, after an audit released Friday found widespread errors and inefficiencies.
The city plans to improve how its street crews collect data and will now measure its effectiveness by the cost to fix potholes rather than the time it takes to respond to complaints.
Every day, the streets department miscounts the potholes it fills or provides the wrong dates for work completed, auditors found, even after the department had tried to fix the data problems.
The result is that the city still does not accurately report how quickly it fills potholes across San Diego, another frustration in the city’s efforts to dig itself out of decades of infrastructure neglect.
The audit also found that the city’s promise to repair potholes in an average of eight days after they’ve been reported — something council members have touted in the past — wastes time and money.
Auditors said repairing potholes by neighborhood, rather than responding to scattershot complaints, would be more efficient, and the city agreed.
The audit mirrors problems identified in our investigations of the city’s pothole tracking system. Last year, we found it took the city an average of five weeks to repair potholes after they were reported. Councilman Kevin Faulconer requested the audit in response to the reporting.
Liam Dillon is a news reporter for Voice of San Diego. He covers how regular people interact with local government. What should he write about next?
Please contact him directly at liam.dillon@voiceofsandiego.org or 619.550.5663.
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