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Follow-up on Department of Streets and Sanitation Garbage Service Enforcement

March 11, 2015

Summary

The City of Chicago Office of Inspector General has concluded a follow up to its June 2014 audit of the Department of Streets and Sanitation’s enforcement of Municipal Code of Chicago § 7-28-240 regarding eligibility for City garbage collection service.

Executive Summary

The City of Chicago Office of Inspector General (OIG) has concluded a follow up to its June 2014 audit of the Department of Streets and Sanitation’s (DSS) enforcement of Municipal Code of Chicago (MCC) § 7-28-240 (“the ordinance”) regarding eligibility for City garbage collection service. OIG concludes that DSS has not implemented corrective actions related to the original findings, and, as a result, significant savings and efficiency opportunities remain unrealized.

The purpose of OIG’s June 2014 audit was to determine if DSS effectively and efficiently enforced the ordinance with respect to “grandfathered” multi-unit dwellings and not-for-profit organizations. Our audit found that in these respects DSS did not enforce the ordinance effectively and efficiently.

Based upon the results of our audit, we recommended that DSS,

• take steps to ensure garbage collection services are provided to only those multi-unit dwellings eligible under the grandfather clause;
• develop and implement a more efficient process for updating the grandfather list on an ongoing basis in order to reduce the resources needed to enforce the ordinance;
• work with the City Council to set explicit standards in the MCC for not-for-profit refuse removal service. If the City Council chose not to formalize this service by amending City ordinance, we recommended that DSS provide refuse removal service to only those properties defined as eligible by City ordinance.

Follow-up on Department of Streets and Sanitation Garbage Service Enforcement - publication cover