The Nation’s Restaurant News reported Friday that New York City public health inspectors are failing approximately one-quarter of the restaurants they examine.

In the report released Thursday, the health department was cited as saying that approximately 25% of the nearly 30,000 restaurants visited by health inspectors in FY ’07 flunked their initial inspections. The failure rate hovered around 20% in FY ’06.

In 48% of the failed inspections, the city’s health inspectors cited “signs of active rats.”

The statistics were released as part of the Mayor’s Management Report, which reviews the performance of city agencies on a semi-annual basis.