Pothole audit: Garland streets program shows improved tracking but gaps in documentation, measurements and staffing

The Garland Audit Committee on April 8 reviewed an internal audit of the city’s pothole and major-patch repair program that praised improvements in work-order tracking but identified persistent gaps in data capture, measurement methods, invoice reconciliation and staffing.

Auditors told the committee the street-maintenance division manages roughly 2,357 lane miles of city streets and was budgeted about $5.1 million in fiscal year 2024, with approximately $1 million earmarked for pothole and patch repairs. The audit’s scope covered work from Oct. 1, 2022, through Sept. 30, 2024.

The audit’s principal findings included: - Manual data capture and inconsistent measurement. Crews record daily job activities on paper job-tracking sheets and supervisors transfer those entries into Excel before final entry into the work order system. The audit found inconsistent or missing length/width/depth measurements and recommended equipping crews with simple measurement tools and using the work-order system’s electronic capabilities to record dimensions and material usage. Management set an implementation target of August 2025 for retraining and tools. - Invoice and performance-data discrepancies. An analysis comparing vendor sales tickets, crew job sheets and supervisor Excel records found mismatches in tons used and square yards recorded. Auditors noted the supervisor’s Excel sheet currently serves as the program’s performance metric source and recommended consolidating records into the city’s asset-management/work-order system (Cartograph) to reduce manual transfer errors. Management plans a phased Cartograph rollout with a targeted August–October 2025 timeline for module deployment and reporting. - Photographic evidence gaps. Auditors sampled about 70 completed repairs and found only six had both before-and-after photos; most lacked photographic evidence. The audit recommends requiring before-and-after photographs for repairs to document completion and support invoicing and performance reporting. - Timeliness and staffing. The division’s targets are seven business days for potholes and 14 days for major patches; auditors found approximately 58% of pothole repairs met the seven-day guideline and about 80% of major patches met the 14-day guideline. The division has about 20 staff and reported five vacancies during the audit period. Staff reported recruitment challenges for frontline positions and said the department is reviewing compensation and application pipelines; managers said they will continue continuous recruitment and consider streamlined hiring requirements for entry-level roles.

Auditors recommended several operational and technology steps, including integrating eAssist citizen service requests with the division work-order system, equipping trucks with GPS and telematics to improve routing and productivity, evaluating AI-enabled detection on sanitation routes for proactive identification of roadway defects, and formalizing policies and standard operating procedures. Management concurred with most recommendations in whole or in part and provided implementation milestones: Cartograph phase 1 (including pothole module) targeted August–October 2025, policy/SOP build-out by November 2025, and periodic performance reporting thereafter.

Committee members praised the improvements and asked staff to report back on recruitment and on progress implementing the technology and reporting upgrades. Staff said some recommendations depend on staffing and system-rollout timelines but that they will proceed with training and the phased Cartograph implementation.