The way the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration
ensures that penalties are correctly determined and violations are properly
abated – or resolved – could stand improvement, the Government Accountability
Office has said.
It said that while the national OSHA office receives copies of the regions’
annual audits, it does not review them or use them to monitor the extent to which
penalties are calculated correctly and violations are properly abated.
Audit results identify problems such as the miscalculation of penalties and the
failure to conduct required follow-up inspections, according to GAO-04-920.
However, it said even if OSHA were to use the results of annual audits for oversight
purposes the information may be incomplete, noting that four of the five regional
offices GAO reviewed did not conduct audits in full accordance with OSHA procedures
during fiscal years 2002 and 2003.
To better understand the factors that influence the variation in penalty amounts,
GAO said it developed a “multivariate” statistical model.
It seems to have done its homework. “To assess the extent of OSHA’s oversight of
the civil penalty determination and violation abatement processes, we reviewed 2002
and 2003 regional audits from the five regions with the most inspections; visited one
of these regional offices and one area office within this region to interview
officials and review documents and procedures; conducted telephone interviews
with the four remaining regional offices and one area office within each of those
regions; interviewed OSHA officials to identify relevant policies and procedures,
and reviewed relevant policies and
procedures,” said GAO.
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