Audit finds Milwaukee County departments lack complete written cash-handling procedures; committee recommends adoption

The Milwaukee County Committee on Audit recommended adoption of a performance audit that found departments accepting public payments often lack complete, written cash-handling procedures. The committee voted 6-0 to recommend adoption of the audit report and its attached resolution; the Office of the Comptroller will follow up on departments' updates approximately six months after the audit.

Jennifer Folliard, the Comptroller's Director of Audits, presented the August performance audit titled "Cash, check and credit card payments: best practices call for written policies and procedures. Departments have some, but not all recommended elements." The audit tested a judgmental sample of seven departments that accept user fees (excluding Parks, which the audit team previously reviewed) and compared departments' procedures against 10 best-practice elements drawn from Government Finance Officers Association guidance.

Auditors found no department had a complete set of documents covering all recommended elements. Folliard said many gaps were documentation issues rather than operational failures: "You can see there's segregation of duties because, you know, employee A's name does this and then employee B does this. So you can see it, but it just needs to be, updated, formalized and and really just specific." The report recommends the comptroller finalize and distribute an updated county cash-handling policy (the county's policy was last updated in October 2000 and was not readily available to employees because it remained in an old paper administrative manual) and require departments that handle cash to develop procedures that incorporate the identified best-practice elements.

The audit also reviewed third-party vendor agreements used to process online and card payments and found three expired contracts and two contracts that lacked required county signatories. Folliard recommended the comptroller work with relevant departments to evaluate whether payment services could be consolidated to improve contract compliance and oversight. The audit team said departments agreed to update procedures and submit revised documents to the audit office; auditors plan a six-month follow-up (anticipated around March) to review progress and report back to the committee.

During discussion, supervisors asked whether the yellow and red markings on the presentation slide indicated operational problems; Folliard reiterated the primary issue was missing or incomplete written documentation, not that the practices did not exist. The committee adopted the audit recommendation on a recorded vote of 6-0. The audit team identified staff who worked on the review and said the Office of the Comptroller will monitor implementation.