The city of Richmond still has not changed the way it issues fuel cards, despite an audit 15 months ago that found the system was ripe for abuse or theft, a new audit reported today.

Despite the city's decision to cancel its fuel cards and issue new ones early this year, officials did not provide employees with personal identification numbers to use with the cards and tighten control over fuel, according to the report by City Auditor Umesh V. Dalal.

The new audit also found that the city issued an additional 414 fuel cards to several agencies, while continuing to issue cards to vehicles instead of individuals, which makes it harder to track which employees are using fuel.

The city allows agencies to let employees use these new, miscellaneous cards at their discretion, the report said. So far, at least 143 of the new fuel cards are actually being used, the report said.

The new audit also found the city has implemented only 10 of 54 recommendations in a May 2007 audit of Richmond's vehicle fleet. Another three have been partially implemented while 41, representing 75 percent of the recommendations, have not been carried out at all.

In a written statement, Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Chris Beschler said he sent a letter Monday to the auditor asserting the city had satifactorily responded to 53 of the 54 recommendations. The final one will be complied with by Sept 19. Beschler said he asked the auditor to include the city's responses in the audit report.

"I thought that he would have done so, but he chose not to include the corrections we’ve already made to improve the efficiency of fleet operations," Beschler said.

Beschler's statement made no reference to the gas card findings.

-- David Ress