Secretary of State ODA Food Safety Inspections Lagging Behind

An audit release by the Oregon Secretary of State’s office Tuesday found the Oregon Department of Agriculture is behind on its food safety inspections.  State Auditor Jeanne Atkins said the ODA was candid during the audit and admitted they are struggling with the backlog of inspections.  The Food Safety Program is responsible for regulating more than 12,000 food safety licenses in the state of Oregon.

These include food processors, dairies, and grocery stores.  As of October, 2,841 licenses were past due for an inspection by more than three months.  ODA said one of their biggest challenges, is staff turnover.

Here is more information from the Secretary of State's Office:

The Food Safety Program operates primarily on revenue from the fees businesses pay for licenses. However, they also receive funding from the Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to inspect some businesses in Oregon on behalf of FDA. While these FDA inspections help fund the program, the audit found ODA could perform more inspections overall and possibly reduce the backlog if the agency were to reduce this workload. The audit team also identified ways in which inspectors could more efficiently and consistently conduct inspections.

One big challenge facing the program is turnover of staff. Since 2006, 28 of the 38 inspector positions have turned over, some due to retirement. ODA is also facing challenges retaining supervisors who oversee inspectors, due to the demands of the workload and unsatisfactory compensation.

“Keeping data on program performance is critical when deciding how to improve operations,” Atkins said. “We found ODA could better inform its decision-making process by simply looking at the information they are already gathering.”

The audit recommends ODA reconsider some of its FDA contract workload, provide more guidance to inspectors, and better track and analyze data. To help the program better achieve its mission, auditors recommend ODA develop policies and procedures to improve oversight of inspectors and develop partnerships with other agencies. And to address some of the staffing challenges, auditors recommend the program develop a succession plan for retiring inspectors and address the challenges facing supervisors.

Click Here to read the complete audit.

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