Poor management at the Denver Sheriff Department has harmed the city’s reputation, put deputies and inmates at risk, and wasted taxpayers’ money, Denver Auditor Dennis Gallagher reported Thursday as he released a scathing 75-page report on the agency.

Gallagher blamed a lack of oversight in the Department of Safety, understaffed jails and poor record-keeping and data analysis.

His audit committee demanded the department adopt a sense of urgency to correct problems that have been identified.

“I don’t feel it,” said Jeff Hart, a committee member. “I don’t see it. I think there needs to be a SWAT team response to this problem.

“If I sound like I’m losing my patience, I feel like I’m reflecting the people this audit committee represents.”

Stephanie O’Malley, the public safety executive director who took office in January 2014, said she understood the concerns. But she also cautioned against rushing to make changes before two outside consulting firms finish their work this spring.

“We’ll continue to work hard,” O’Malley said. “This is a situation in our mind’s eye that is urgent.”

The sheriff’s department has undergone intense scrutiny in the past year after a series of excessive force cases that have embarrassed city officials, cost millions in legal payouts and lawyers’ fees, and caused the resignation of a sheriff.

That has led to at least a half-dozen inspections, audits and reviews, including a major report due this spring from Hillard Heintze and OIR Group, two outside consulting firms hired for nearly $300,000.

But those various reports did not stop Gallagher from adding his input.

Throughout the report, auditors slammed the department’s poor record-keeping.

“If you don’t have good reliable data, you can’t perform simple, root-cause analysis,” Gallagher said. “We had several rough spots where we didn’t get information we asked for, and then we realized they didn’t have the information in the first place.”

Auditors found deputies and supervisors were slack in completing reports, including their reports on Taser use. That created an appearance that the department underreports its use-of-force incidents and creates a liability for the city.

It also said a failure — especially within the internal affairs bureau — to use data analysis led to an inability to identify potential problems before they turned into crises.

“Instead, we are left with a backlog of investigations and unanalyzed data that could have been used to help reduce the very incidents that lead to allegations of misconduct in the first place,” the audit said.

Sheriff Elias Diggins countered that he created a data-analysis unit shortly after being named interim sheriff during the summer. But building a database and buying the tools needed to do so take time.

He also put on hold a computerized system that helps the command staff identify problem deputies. The outside consultants are expected to recommend programs and guidelines for the department, Diggins said.

The auditors also found that the sheriff’s department had used flawed methodology in estimating its staffing needs. Those miscalculations led to expensive overtime bills, increasing attrition and high use of the Family and Medical Leave Act among deputies.

The department needs 111 full-time employees to fill the gap, the report said. It has 891 full-time employeees, according to the department’s latest annual report.

After the audit committee meeting, O’Malley told reporters that nothing in the report came as a shock and it reaffirmed reform efforts that already are underway.

“We’ve said all along that we have a lot of work to do,” she said, adding that she will provide the auditor’s report to the outside consultants. “We recognize the challenges.”

Audits of city agencies often are nerve-wracking exercises for managers, but tension between the auditor and the sheriff’s department ran especially high.

In December, Gallagher fired off a letter to Mayor Michael Hancock accusing the department of trying to obstruct his staff’s work.

He wrote: “We have encountered recalcitrance, foot-dragging and what I can only describe as obstructionist behavior.”

On Thursday, the audit committee was not convinced the foot-dragging had ended, repeatedly prodding O’Malley and Diggins to pick up the reform pace.

“I just don’t want Denver to be the next headline in a national paper for a problem that was identified seven or eight years ago,” said committee member Leslie Mitchell.

Noelle Phillips: 303-954-1661, nphillips@denverpost.com or twitter.com/Noelle_Phillips

Staff writer Jesse Paul contributed to this report.