New York City’s Office of Energy Conservation has failed at its main job – ensuring that city agencies save money by using less heat, air-conditioning, and electricity – an audit by the city comptroller has found.

In Boston and Houston, energy conservation officials are surveying energy use at city buildings and determining which ones most urgently need to be made more energy-efficient. In Chicago, authorities are implementing a “global buildings management system” so they can monitor energy use at city buildings from a central location.

Here in New York City, however, despite previous warnings, the Office of Energy Conservation, which operates within the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, hasn’t “developed effective overall strategies for managing energy conservation, and has not established energy reduction goals for city agencies,” according to the audit – and that failure is costing taxpayers a lot of money.

The city’s electric bill could have been nearly $800,000 lower over a 10-year period if just four of the city’s 4,000 facilities had installed more energy-efficient systems, according to the audit, which was completed June 30. It says that each one-percentage-point drop in energy consumption at city facilities would save the city $5.2 million a year.

“The city needs to be looking at every way possible to reduce its energy,” the deputy comptroller who oversees the audit bureau, Gregory Brooks, said in an interview. “It’s important from a policy point of view, from an environmental point of view, from a fiscal point of view. This should be a wake-up call to the administration to really get this thing moving.”

The city established the Office of Energy Conservation in 1976, in the midst of the national energy crisis and the New York City fiscal crisis. The office was created to oversee energy use and monitor cost information for all city agencies. At each agency, the office designated an energy liaison officer to help track and review energy use. In 1989, Mayor Koch issued an executive order directing the office to take responsibility for “the development and coordination of energy conservation policy for all agencies.”

An audit by the state comptroller in 1997 found, however, that the office had failed to comply with the Koch order and to develop long-range strategies for managing energy consumption. The new audit by the office of the city comptroller, William Thompson Jr., found little improvement eight years later.

According to the multiyear study, the Office of Energy Conservation tracks deviations in energy use at city buildings and pays bills, but it rarely asks agencies to explain spikes in energy use. The office’s energy liaison officers are supposed to track energy use and promote conservation, but three-quarters of the officers surveyed by the comptroller’s office said they did not investigate when energy use surged at their agencies and didn’t take any action to ensure compliance with seasonal conservation guidelines.

The audit also found that while the office used $162.6 million in low-cost state financing between 1998 and 2004 to pay for energy conservation upgrades, it could have done more. In early 2003, the state Power Authority made $50 million available to the city in Energy Cost Reduction funds, but the city hasn’t used any of that money, which expires in 2008.

The comptroller recommends in the audit that the Office of Energy Conservation establish strategies and set specific long-range goals for energy conservation, but in its response the Department of Citywide Administrative Services vehemently objects to that idea.

“I am concerned that establishing a numeric reduction goal across the board for all agencies that is unrelated to agency function, agency building conditions, and technology will simply result in a labor-intensive report system in which variances in weather, buildings utilization, programs changes, etc., become the focus rather than the implementation of energy conservation projects,” the commissioner of administrative services, Martha Hirst, wrote in a letter to Mr. Brooks.

She continued: “Investigating and adjusting for these factors in approximately 4,000 facilities in order to ‘document’ a difference as savings would be unreasonable and would dramatically reduce the personnel dedicated to other activities, including energy conservation.”

Mr. Brooks said he doesn’t buy that response.

“Agencies object to setting goals because they don’t want anybody to hold you to a standard,” he said. “We really should be able to measure them against something.”

A spokesman for the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, Mark Daly, said since the comptroller’s office conducted its audit a number of significant changes have been made at the Office of Energy Conservation.

“Some of the changes were under way as the audit was going on,” he said. “The office was restructured. … Now that we’ve negotiated the new contract to supply power, we’re able to work on the newer and larger projects and large ideas that we’ve been working on.”

The department requested and was granted an additional $740,000 in this year’s city budget. The money would pay for three new staff members, who will help plan for energy-efficient projects, perform detailed energy audits, and help with the bills.

He said the department also completed a survey of its facilities and picked 39 facilities where the agency can make improvements that will save the city money.

While Mr. Brooks said targeting 39 sites makes little difference in a city with 4,000 facilities, Mr. Daly said making changes at the places with the most room for improvement is the smartest way to reduce the city’s energy use.

He said one project already completed – installing lightweight garage doors at sanitation facilities – has saved the city $400,000 a year.

“What we’re looking at is energy efficiency,” Mr. Daly said, “and thankfully, there’s a lot of newer technology that’s helping us achieve that.”