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(DISCUSSION/ACTION) Scope of audit of the Dept by the Controller.
Peg Stevenson, Director of the City Services Auditor division of the Controller’s office reviewed what the performance audit would accomplish for the Dept. but said that normally this would not be done for the Dept at this time since it has been looked at various facets, several times over the past 8 yrs. They will attempt to give 500 hrs of audit work to the Dept this fiscal year (eg of a 500 hr audit is the one for Treasure Island).
They are undertaking a citywide audit on payroll to identify fair/unfair allocations, legal/illegal allocations, or just bad practices. They are also going to look at CBO compliance standards. They also do “post audit testing” where they look at transactions to see the error rates in the process.
Comm Beijen referred to a list of suggestions for areas for the audit, submitted by Mark Lui (attached at end of minutes).
Lui said that payroll is the largest cost to the Dept. They continue to work on workers comp. They also have significant costs in the post positions (exceeding $100K/yr for each counselor that is out). The CBO contracts.
President Stiglich asked P. Stevenson if there was a follow up of the workers comp review to see how the recommendations were implemented? Stevenson said since this was not a performance audit, there wasn’t the normal follow up done, but the ongoing citywide analysis of workers comp includes how the Dept is doing.
Comm Beijen asked Lui if the list represented his priorities. Lui said, “yes, it did, based on the amounts of money and the relative risks that, at least from our points of view where we felt there could be some benefits in terms of looking at these areas.”
Comm Fetico said that his interest was to get a full audit of the Dept’s financial processes and a performance review of how the Dept was operating overall and why things were the way they were: eg. why there was just one staff in the community programs division to deal with contracts.
Comm Hale said he was also in favor of a full audit of the Dept. If it could not be done in one year, then he wanted to see the plan that clearly delineates what would be looked at and when so that all areas needed were covered.
P. Stevenson said that the way they approach an audit is “risk based”. Looking at areas where a great amount of money is spent, and looking at known or potential weaknesses in that process. She mentioned a little about a monitoring project of CBO contracts they are now doing to streamline individual (and somewhat duplicative) monitoring done by various city departments of those CBOs. This Dept is now a part of that monitoring evaluation being done by the Controller.
Comm Queen reviewed that an overall performance audit of the Dept was part of the original request from Comm Fetico. His own interest is in how each division of the Dept is performing vs. the goals set for each. He’d like to see, aside from the contracting process, the audit at least include one division of the Dept, like Probation Services.
P. Stevenson said perhaps the Commission could take a couple of things that are in place to get at the structural issues that they are thinking of, rather than saying a comprehensive audit activity. She said she thinks it more beneficial to look at an area of concern where they know there is a management issue or a processing problem, or a particular type of job classification that really needs analytical assistance.
The Chief described some effort now being made to do performance evaluations of probation services staff. Comm Queen commented that maybe an outside body can also be used in conjunction with what the Chief had already set up.
P. Stevenson said perhaps the Commission could take a couple of things that are in place to get at the structural issues that they are thinking of, rather than saying a comprehensive audit activity. She said she thinks it more beneficial to look at an area of concern where they know there is a management issue or a processing problem, or a particular type of job classification that really needs analytical assistance.
Comm Hale said he’d like a review of the Title 4e reimbursements to see what can be done to maximize this as a source of revenue for Log Cabin also.
The Chief described some effort now being made to do performance evaluations of probation services staff. Comm Queen commented that maybe an outside body can also be used in conjunction with what the Chief had already set up.
P. Stevenson reviewed that there has been two audits done on very large issues of the Dept (WC and JH staffing), the Dept has a new Chief, who has a long history of work in this field, and the Dept is getting a new finance and admin chief, so with all things considered, this Dept is in a better position than many other depts.
President Stiglich said that an outside auditor should be utilized for areas the Dept doesn’t have the expertise to do itself, especially in financial matters, or in areas the Dept has shown it has not been able to do a good job, eg. CBO contracting.
P. Stevenson said that the Commission has plenty of time to decide, the Controller could not start their work until February, more likely March.
Comm Beijen will take this back to committee and work out something with the Dept. to present next time.
(public comments)
Abraham, Inner City Youth, working with Dept youth, commented that there are many aspects of the Dept’s work that an audit could attend to, but he was interested in finding out if there were ways to “track” youth who leave the dept, so they do not lose contact with them in the communities.
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