Report: No Public Health Risk Despite Questionable Restaurant Inspection Methods in Austin

AUSTIN, TX — A newly released report by the city auditor found no sufficient evidence supporting an allegation of improper restaurant inspections potentially putting the public at risk.

The new 17-page report also examined allegations of health inspectors' misuse of time, but that, too, was found not to have compromised public health, Food Safety News reported.

Some shortcomings were found, however. The report documents the city wasted money due to "grossly inefficient practices and procedures" within the city's Environmental Services Division, a unit of the Public Health Department.

The report stems from a January complaint to the city auditor centered on seven environmental health officers allegedly misusing municipal resources without being held accountable. The complainant concluded eateries were going without proper inspections as a result, potentially putting members of the public at risk.

But the study found the public was never put at risk to their health, the newsletter reported. To achieve that conclusion, auditors secured the services of a registered professional sanitarian to re-inspect the affected restaurants.

But those re-inspections did uncover troubling findings: Inadequate practices and procedures (including lack of a structured work plan for restaurant inspectors), limited supervisory review of inspection activity and insufficient supervision of personnel in the field, Food Safety News reported. That mix created an environment ripe for wasting city resources, according to the report.

Among the transgressions uncovered in the course of the investigation:

• While health officers typically receive a list of restaurants to inspect each day, they aren't required to report in or after performing inspections. Such limited oversight resulted in time wasted on city time.
• Health officers were found to take time in their workdays to sleep in their vehicles or go shopping during times they were supposed to be conducting inspections.
• One inspector was found to have spent 90 minutes each morning working out at a local gym.
• Evidence found that inspectors would often use city-owned vehicles for personal reasons.

Despite such questionable work ethic, the re-inspections closely mirrored the original assessments: "On average, the scores of our re-inspections were within four points of the original inspection score, and we do not have reason to believe that the officers we observed have put public health at risk by allowing dangerous or unsanitary restaurants to remain in operation,” the auditor reported.

The upshot: The report concludes the over-arching problem is as much filling time as wasting it, Food Safety News reported: “If you only have to do 2-3 inspections in an 8-hour day, to hit your 10-12 weekly inspection number, what the hell are you doing all day?," one auditor observed. "I’ve been asking that since I started only to hear ‘just work your 8-hour day.’ I was told once to do a compliance visit. You can’t just make up bogus compliance visits at the last minute because there are 45 minutes to fill. I’ve been told to sit in my car or a coffee shop and read my T-FER (Texas Food Establishment Rules). I took that as code for just tell me you’re doing that and I’ll be happy.”

After the study, department heads are now exploring options related to technology and software to better monitor inspectors and optimize efficiency.

>>> Read the full story at Food Safety News,>

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