Comptroller Criticizes Sanitation Department

City Comptroller William Thompson Jr. criticized the Department of Sanitation yesterday for lax employee oversight in its Vacant Lot Clean-up Program.

The audit, conducted over almost two years, said that the Department of Sanitation had claimed to remove tons of garbage from lots that were already clean. The auditors observed 79 lots and found that 31 of them were already clean before the sanitation department claimed to have cleaned them. Officials from the department filed dumping fees for 13 of the already-clean lots, according to the audit.

"It's shameful that the Department of Sanitation has spent taxpayer dollars to remove waste that wasn't even there," Mr. Thompson said in a statement. "Now, I call that wasteful."

Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty disagreed with the claim that his employees were clearing lots that were already clean in a five-page response to the audit.