Los Angeles City Controller Laura Chick on Monday released a sharply critical audit of the city’s Department of Building and Safety, saying it has serious deficiencies in enforcement of building codes and inspections.

In the audit, Chick said the Department of Building and Safety has made great strides in customer service, especially in quick turnaround of permits. But that progress has come at the expense of enforcing building safety codes.

“It is clear that in recent years, the City’s leadership has pushed for a more business-friendly Building and Safety Department,” Chick said in a letter to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the City Council accompanying the audit. “While the Department has been successful in expediting the permit process, it has been less so in aggressively enforcing building safety laws…The larger question is: Are standards being sacrificed for quantity over quality?”

Specifically, the Building and Safety Department “has chosen to rely on building owners voluntarily complying with the law, which has resulted in at least 32 percent of then not doing so,” Chick said. “The department’s transformation from regulator to facilitator has resulted in a number of property owners who repeatedly and consistently flout the law.”

Among the deficiencies cited in Chick’s letter: failure of some senior inspectors to conduct follow-up inspections to check on the work of line inspectors; backlogs of safety inspections for elevators, boilers and seismic gas shut-off valves and a backlog of 2,400 overdue inspections.

Chick also made 30 recommendations to improve the department’s inspection and enforcement practices, including ensuring that all inspectors meet training requirements, more follow-up inspections by supervisors and better tracking of disciplined inspectors.

Reached late Monday, Department of Building and Safety officials acknowledged that a long-running staffing shortage has led to delays in inspections.

“But we want to stress that in no way has public safety been compromised,” said David Keim, the department’s chief of code enforcement. “This department feels very strongly that the buildings that Los Angeles citizens live and work in are safer and stronger than almost any other city in America.”

In the city budget that went into effect on July 1, the department has the authority to hire 130 additional staff. “That should go a long way towards alleviating many of the concerns raised in the audit,” Keim said.

Keim also said that department officials, from General Manager Andrew Adelman on down, will cooperate with Chick’s office to ensure that the recommendations are implemented.