A new audit says San Diego’s boat storage program on Mission Bay is being badly mismanaged, with vague rules, fees that are too low and poor record-keeping that has left 400 people on a waiting list — even though more than a third of the slots are open. City officials have lost track of more than half the total slots — 139 of 270 — and haven’t shifted from manual to electronic or online billing, which creates confusion about how many slots are available, the audit says. That has left 351 people on a waiting list for large boat storage and 72 people on a waiting list to store small boats. Some people on those lists have been waiting since 2002, the audit says. Councilmember Vivian Moreno said this type of mismanagement has become too common in the city. “I am a little shocked,” she said. “But this is what we have, and this is what it is in the city of San Diego.” Moreno harshly criticized city parks officials, calling their responses to the audit “discouraging” and “tone deaf.” She also criticized parks officials for estimating that it would take three years to fix many of the problems detailed in the 40-page audit, which was prompted by an anonymous call to the city’s fraud hotline. Moreno said the problems can and should be fixed much more quickly. For example, she said the city studies and raises more complex sewer rates in less than three years, so raising boat rental fees shouldn’t take that long. The audit also finds that higher fees are needed to recover the city’s staffing and maintenance costs and to boost management of the program. Moreno said she would be particularly frustrated if she owned a boat. “To put it lightly, the status of the boat storage program is in disarray,” she said. “We do not charge proper fees, we don’t have clear rules, we have not even been able to keep track of the number of spaces for rent.” Boats are stored on beaches in Mission Bay’s Sail Bay in city-owned areas called beach bars which allow boat owners long term storage, shown on Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2024. (K.C. Alfred / The San Diego Union-Tribune) Moreno’s frustration was echoed by other members of the city’s Audit Committee. Committee member Stewart Halpern said a quickly implemented fee increase should be a priority with the city facing projected deficits that could require cuts to cherished programs. He said the city could use benchmarking conducted by city auditors that shows San Diego charges only $171 a year for beach boat storage, compared to $305 in Long Beach, $375 in Santa Barbara and $830 in Santa Cruz. “It seems like you could implement that tomorrow and make three times as much money,” Halpern said. “I’m wondering if the average taxpayer understands the delay here.” Parks officials agreed to make 10 changes to the program that were recommended by the audit. But they said the boat storage program, which dates back to at least 1952, has been a low priority. The slots — essentially bars in the sand that boats can be tied to — are spread across 12 locations along Mission Bay: 10 locations on the western edge of the bay near Mission Boulevard, one near Fanuel Park and one at Moorland Street. Parks officials said they wouldn’t be able to make many of the recommended changes until as far into the future as fiscal year 2028. Boats are stored on beaches in Mission Bay’s Sail Bay in city-owned areas called beach bars which allow boat owners long term storage, shown on Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2024. (K.C. Alfred / The San Diego Union-Tribune) Karen Dennison, assistant director of parks, said the proposed fee increase can’t happen quickly because the department plans to study all the department’s fees simultaneously as part of a comprehensive process that will include gathering public feedback from thousands of park users. “It does appear to be a long runway, but that is to ensure we get the proper public input and that we’ve considered all of the perspectives,” Dennison said. The audit said the city has been using the wrong method for calculating the fees. “We found that a consultant set boat storage permit fees based on city staff’s estimates of how many hours they spend administering boat storage permits and enforcing compliance,” the audit says. “However, the fees could have been based on the use of city property and benchmarking with other jurisdictions. We found that other cities charge between two to nearly five times more per permit than San Diego does.” The audit also said the city should consider varying fees based on boat size, which doesn’t happen now, and ending an auto-renewal policy that allows the same people to monopolize the scarce slots for years. The audit also says parks officials hadn’t conducted a comprehensive evaluation of the storage slots in 15 years but conducted one after the auditor’s investigation began. That evaluation led to the removal of 29 abandoned boats and enforcement actions against 44 other boats.