It hardly comes as a surprise to some San Fernando Valley residents that a recent city audit found fewer street sweeping trucks roll through their neighborhoods to clear away debris than in other parts of the city.

Janelle Hussion says she has seen a sweeping truck come down her street only once in the 2 1/2 years she has lived in her Sunland neighborhood.

Hussion lives on a street that does not get the weekly cleanings that the Bureau of Street Services’s street sweeping division focuses most of its limited resources on.

In fact, less than half of L.A.’s streets are cleaned on a regular basis, as indicated in a report released Wednesday by City Controller Ron Galperin.

An audit by Galperin found that city sweepers clean just 34 percent of city streets, or 4,692 curb miles, on a weekly basis. Such streets have signs posted that indicate the once-a-week cleaning schedule.

Hussion’s neighborhood is in good company. It is part of the “East Valley” street sweeping zone, which contains just 19 percent of the routes the city works to clean frequently, usually on a weekly schedule.

The “West Valley” zone, which encompasses Valley neighborhoods as well as areas in West Los Angeles, has 14 percent of the “posted” streets.

By comparison, the two other geographic zones of the city possess the bulk of the streets that are cleaned weekly, or frequently. The “Bay Harbor” area has 36 percent of the frequently swept streets, while the “North Central” zone has 31 percent.

Courtesy Los Angeles City Controller’s Office

Galperin’s audit also found that about 11 percent of city streets that are considered more well-traveled than others are cleaned “with some regularity” during the “early a.m.” morning hours, prior to rush hour.

Street sweepers only get to the remaining 55 percent of the streets if “resources permit,” and often only when residents make a request, according to the report.

“I ’m paying for sweeping with my property taxes, and I don’t remember the taxes going down when they stopped this service.” — Michael Murray, West Valley resident

While she is not shocked by the data, Hussion says she is disappointed the city has been unable to get to her street more often.

“It is kind of a big deal,” she said. “It would be nice (to have the sweepings occur), even if it was once a month, on every street in town, but dirt does build up in front of my house, and trash, and we have to go out and clean it up ourselves.”

Galperin’s audit notes that the Bureau of Street Services is limited by the lack of funding for its street sweeping program, which has been significantly cut back over the last several years. The street sweeping program went from being funded for 263 positions in 2008 to only having 111 staffers budgeted in fiscal year 2016-2017.

Elena Stern, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Street Services, said they are not allowed to change the posted sweeping routes on their own. The streets that are part of the “posted sweeping routes” were assigned by the City Council “many decades ago” and the department “does not have unilateral power to alter them to move posted sweeping from one neighborhood to another,” she said.

Stern added that requests during the past two fiscal years to add 20 additional positions to the program to increase cleanings in areas without the posted signs, were rejected.

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Galperin’s audit found that there is limited data to accurately determine how often the remaining, unscheduled sweepings and early morning cleanings are done. Those streets amount to about 9,199 curb miles.

Galperin writes that the Bureau of Street Service has generally been able to accomplish a goal of getting to at least 95 percent of the posted streets.

But he noted that “less than half of unposted streets were completely swept during the 2015 calendar year even as Los Angeles lagged in productivity relative to other major American cities.”

Galperin recommended that the Bureau of Street Services base the frequency of its cleaning on need, by adopting a “cleanliness criteria” and assigning routes based on that. He also suggested that the bureau work with City Council offices and other departments to make the city street sweeping operation more efficient.

“Cleaning L.A.’s streets is an immense task for our (Bureau of Street Services) staff who are charged with sweeping thousands of miles each week,” Galperin wrote. “The findings of my audit are meant to capitalize on the work that has been done by identifying greater efficiencies to ensure that residents, businesses and visitors may experience cleaner streets.”

Councilman Mitchell Englander, who represents the northwest Valley, did not comment on the state of street sweeping services, but said in a statement that he sympathizes with residents who might feel they lost out on services. He said he has been working in other ways to attend to his constituents’ needs.

“As the former campaign manager for Valley secession, it is not news to me that our region doesn’t receive its fair share of services, which is why I’ve fought to increase resources dedicated to road repair and tree trimming which has exceeded every other district for the last two years,” he said.

Englander was a campaign manager, through his firm Issues Strategies, for a failed 2002 effort to get the San Fernando Valley to secede from Los Angeles.

West Valley area resident Michael Murray said there was once a time when his street, which does not have a posted schedule, was cleaned weekly.

“I don’t know when it (the truck) stopped coming by, but it’s been decades, I’m sure,” he said.

He said that often it can become “a mess,” such as when the pine needles and leaves pile up, making it difficult to park his car. When he makes a call to 311, a truck does come by pretty reliably, but the reduced level of overall street sweeping services can be infuriating.

“I’m paying for sweeping with my property taxes, and I don’t remember the taxes going down when they stopped this service,” he said.