The Examiner has the goods today on D.C.’s Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, the agency responsible for most contstruction permits and business licenses in the city. According to the Office of the Inspector General, it appears the department lacks the resources to collect on more than 22,000 infractions still unpaid, which total a whopping $8.825 million in fines.

The department has no system for collecting outstanding fines and penalties, infrequently imposes liens and may be unable to collect at all due to missing case files, according to the Inspector General.

In its written response to the report, the department acknowledged “there is a backlog of outstanding fines and penalties that have not had adequate collection action,” but the agency was unaware it amounted to $8.8 million. The department said it has developed a process for collecting fines, added staff to augment its collections and filed 507 liens in fiscal 2006 totaling $465,865.

Many in the District seem ready to give credit to how far the DCRA has come since Director Patrick Canavan took over in January 2005 (though probably not Councilmember Jim Graham, long the agency’s most vocal critic). But call us crazy if we express some dismay that an agency like the Department of Motor Vehicles, renowned for its bureaucratic largesse, seems to be able to pass out ‘The Boot’ in this city like candy canes at Christmas and keep the cash rolling in with no problem whatsoever, while a department with as important a job to as the DCRA can’t seem to track down 22,000 lawbreakers. What can we do to help, Mr. Canavan? We may be pale, weak Internet denizens, but if you can’t get the manpower you need to collect, we’d be happy to write a few thousand threatening emails and see if we can’t get some of that $8.8 million back.