Consumers and businesses in Hawaii risk getting ripped off in routine business transactions because the state agency tasked with inspecting gas pumps, weight scales such as those at supermarkets, and taxi meters still isn’t inspecting those devices as often as it should, according to a new state report.

The state auditor warned in a report in 2013 that the Department of Agriculture’s Measurement Standards Branch was conducting too few inspections to meet its responsibility to protect the public from inaccurate or fraudulent business practices, and a follow-up report released Tuesday by the auditor concluded little has changed.

However, state Board of Agriculture Chairman Scott Enright said the state also relies on outside organizations known as “registered service agencies” to check and maintain scales and gas pumps, and said the latest auditor’s report does not take that into account.

The auditor’s report found the Measurement Standards Branch “is still not carrying out its inspection duties or responsibilities. Inspections of petroleum meters, scales, and taxi meters continue to decline, by as much as 85 percent for petroleum meters,” the new report found. “In addition, Neighbor Island inspections continue to be ignored.”

The inspection rates continued to fall even as the number of inspectors remained fairly steady since 2011, the new report found. The auditor also concluded routine inspections are performed only on Oahu and not on the neighbor islands.

“Since (the branch) is unable to fulfill its mandated regulatory functions with its current staffing levels, there is a continual risk that consumers and businesses are not being protected from inaccurate practices,” the report states. “For example, consumers may receive less than what they paid for if a gas pump is out of calibration and is under-pumping gasoline.”

The report found that only 41 of the 2,254 registered scales in Hawaii were inspected by the Measurement Standards Branch in fiscal year 2015, and only 63 of the state’s petroleum pumps were inspected. Inspectors did far better with taxi meters, inspecting 2,421 of the taxi meters registered with the state in 2015.

Complaints from the public are the inspectors’ highest priority because they involve dissatisfied consumers and businesses, according to the report. Taxi meter inspections are also a priority because cabdrivers must have their meters inspected by the branch before being eligible to receive a county taxi business license, the report states.

Enright said those statistics “don’t reflect the work that’s being done.” In addition to the inspections by state employees, the department relies on registered service agencies that inspected 3,176 scales and 2,521 gas pumps in fiscal year 2015, he said.

Those for-profit agencies are paid by markets and other businesses to monitor and maintain their scales and pumps, and are registered with the state, Enright said. “We go out and check their work to make sure they’re complying,” he said.

Grocery retailers and gas stations “want to assure their customers that they’re getting what they’re paying for,” Enright said. “Most of these institutions are looking to be up and up in the way that they deal with the public.”

State lawmakers requested the 2013 audit because they were concerned that layoffs during the Great Recession had eroded the ability of the Measurement Standards Branch to do its job.

Enright said that with all the other demands on the department to hire pesticide inspectors, plant quarantine inspectors and administrators who retired and had to be replaced, hiring for the Measurement Standards Branch never got priority. Enright said that was his decision, and noted the department still has 130 vacant positions.

“That’s the challenge. Where does the priority go? And I could never justify the priority going to Measurement Standards,” Enright said. “We’re doing bare-bones work, but we’re not getting the same kind of pushback that we’re getting on pesticides or invasive species, or the other work we do around the state, so really, it’s on me, and I took that responsibility.”