Summary

GAO conducted a survey of the functions of the District of Columbia Department of Transportation. Most of the work focused on the collection of traffic ticket fines, the management of capital projects, and motor vehicle maintenance and repairs.

GAO found that traffic ticket revenue would be significantly higher if the Department were more timely in its attempts to collect outstanding fines and if it were to fully implement its established collection procedures. A major reason for delays in fine collection is the Department's failure to send reminder notices to violators on a timely and consistent basis. This, in turn, has caused the Department delays in further followup action to collect delinquent payments. In the automatic data processing division, GAO cites insufficient resources, inadequate software systems and documentation, and a lack of management controls as persistent problems which appear to underlie these conditions. These problems, combined with the need to meet other data processing demands, result in reminder notices' receiving low priority. The Department could manage capital resources more efficiently and effectively if it had more detailed and complete cost and schedule information for individual capital improvement projects, and it has proposed acquisition of a comprehensive information system which, if fully implemented, could provide managers with more complete and useful project data. Changes are also needed in the areas of equipment repairs, parts and supplies inventory, and fuel dispensing. The mobile equipment division lacks timely and complete information to exercise proper management oversight and control in each of these areas.