Ethics Board Reviews Results of Audit

At their May 19 meeting, the Independent Ethics Board reviewed an audit report from Moore Stevens Lovelace PA. The Board hired the company in Dec. 2019 to audit Board expenditures from March 1, 2015 to Sept. 30, 2019.

“The purpose was to determine that the expenditures of the Board comply with applicable state statutes, City ordinances, and City policies and procedures,” staff reports.

According to the report, Moore Stevens Lovelace found no non-compliance but made recommendations for improvement.

The first recommendation is reviewing the Ethics Officer’s transactions every month. The report notes that only the Ethics Officer’s administrative assistant had approved the Ethics Officer’s P-Card purchases.

Staff reports that the Board will include the transaction details in its monthly budget report moving forward.

The second recommendation is documenting the public purpose of each transaction.

“We recommend that the public purpose of all P-Card transactions be documented on the receipt, if not apparent by the type of purchase,” as stated in the report. “Food purchases for Board meetings should be supported by a receipt and other additional support.”

Additionally, Moore Stevens Lovelace recommended promptly scanning all P-Card statements and receipts into OnBase, the City’s document management system.

“Our testing noted that a majority of the 2019 transactions tested were not scanned into OnBase,” according to the report.

Staff reports that the Ethics Board has begun implementing the recommendations.

The Board also passed a motion requiring unusual expenses to be reviewed or approved by email.