New York, NY —

The Department of Environmental Protection is blowing its deadlines on nearly two-thirds of the projects it supervises.

That's what an audit released today by Comptroller Bill Thompson finds. According to the audit, the city agency fails to perform sufficient oversight of jobs it awards in omnibus contracts.

Thompson found DEP supervised projects scrutinized in the audit were an average 278 days overdue — that's nine months. Thompson says the agency needs to enforce its own rules and impose financial penalties on contractors who don't meet the terms of their contracts.

A spokeswoman for the DEP said the agency agrees with Thompson's recommendations and has worked to improve the Job Order Contracting program through which it awards bundled contracts.

The audit examines work begun between June 2004 and July 2007.