Auditor General presents FY24 report and outlines FY26 audit priorities including health-care claims and hourly pay

Auditor General Esther Koh presented the Office of Auditor General's FY24 annual report and a proposed FY26 audit plan to the Fairfax County School Board on June 17, highlighting completed audits, fraud-and-abuse inquiries and four proposed priority engagements for the coming fiscal year.

The presentation outlined what the OAG described as a full complement of FY24 work, with follow-up still pending on the local school activity funds audit. "We have completed all the audit work approved by the board, with the only exception is the local school activity fund audit as of year end," Koh said. She told the board her office reports directly to the board and has "unrestricted access to all school division information" relevant to audits.

Why it matters: The OAG's findings and its upcoming audit program can affect how FCPS manages spending, staffing, grants and school-level controls. Koh told board members the FY26 priorities were chosen after benchmarking, broad stakeholder surveys and staff interviews.

Most notable FY24 findings and work

- Completed performance audits included food and nutrition services (two moderate, one low risk finding) and facilities maintenance (one high, four moderate risk findings). Luke, a senior auditor on the OAG team, summarized the FY24 performance results: "We identified internal control weaknesses, deferred preventive maintenance work orders, a lack of benchmarking and inefficient information systems," he said. The grants performance audit identified a moderate risk finding of noncompliance for grants totaling about $26,000.

- The OAG received 79 fraud, waste and abuse reports during FY24 and performed preliminary reviews on each. Koh described the OAG's four pillars of work as risk assessment, internal audit, fraud/waste/abuse inquiries and outreach/education.

FY26 proposed priorities

Koh and the audit team presented a ranked shortlist of FY26 priorities. The four primary engagements proposed were:

- Health-care claims management: an audit of how the Office of Benefits Services manages self-insured health-plan expenditures and contract oversight (the OAG said it would not audit vendor claims directly but would review FCPS oversight and contract compliance). - Hourly-employee structure and stipends: a combined review of hourly-pay practices (including temporary assignments) and stipend use (academic and athletic supplements, temporary-assignment stipends). - School and office safety: evaluation of safety/security requirements, risk assessment, monitoring, training and selected site visits. - Contracts-related audits: targeted reviews of contracts managed by Special Services and Instructional Services for compliance with terms and accountability requirements.

Koh noted one carryover engagement: the local school activity funds audit that must wait until after fiscal year end.

Board discussion and follow-up

Board members asked how the OAG selected people to complete post-audit surveys (Koh said surveys were sent to audit clients and the office typically followed up twice), how follow-up on recommendations is handled (the OAG follows up on all performance-audit findings and on moderate/high findings for business-process audits), and whether the health-care-claims audit would address vendor service quality (Koh said the planned audit would assess FCPS oversight rather than the quality of services provided by vendors).

The OAG said it would present the FY26 plan for board approval on July 10. "We're proposing these engagements after benchmarking, staff feedback and input from the board and audit committee," Koh said.

Ending: The OAG team said it will post full reports and scopes on BoardDocs and continue quarter‑by‑quarter follow-up on recommendations.