Follow-Up on Recommendations from Report No. 16-02, Audit of the City's Paratransit Service
From Honolulu City Auditor, January 7, 2020
…The original audit, Audit of the City's Paratransit Service, Report No. 16-02, issued in March 2016, was conducted pursuant to Council Resolution 14-69, FD1. The resolution asked our office to perform a comprehensive management and performance audit of the city's paratransit service. The audit objectives were to assess and update the status of issues identified in Resolution 14-69, FD1, compare and contrast Honolulu's paratransit service with the American with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) minimum requirements and with other jurisdictions that provide paratransit service, and assess the sustainability of the paratransit program. Report No. 16-02 made 17 recommendations.
In May 2018, our office issued an Audit Recommendations Status Report Fiscal Year 2017, Report No. 18-03. In this status update, we found that of the 17 recommendations made in Report No. 16-02, eight recommendations were completed, two were resolved, five were in process, and two were not started.
For purposes of this follow-up audit, we focused on 9 of 17 recommendations from the original report. They include 7 of the 17 recommendations that were in process or not started, plus two recommendations that were previously determined to be complete, but revisited due to their high risk and impact to the agency. In addition, we assessed two areas of the city's paratransit service that currently impact service.
First, we believe the city and state should review the TriMet model used by Portland, Oregon's paratransit service to possibly bring in additional revenues to support the city's paratransit service.
Secondly, we found that O'ahu Transit Services, Inc. is hampered by an ineffective communications system that sometimes prevents riders from making reservations, drops calls, and does not record voicemail complaints.
In this follow-up audit, we found that three recommendations were completed, five were in process, and one was not started. We also found that a city and state collaboration could maximize paratransit dollars using Portland, Oregon's TriMet model. Finally, we found a poorly planned replacement phone system resulted in unreliable paratransit communications and risks ADA violations….
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