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City auditor flags HR documentation gaps and court cash-handling weaknesses; committee seeks follow-up and third-party review option
Summary
The city auditor reported that HR files and court cash handling both showed material control and documentation weaknesses; the court’s internally developed receipts system could not produce standard reports and the auditor recommended a third‑party controls assessment.
The city auditor presented a quarterly update and two completed audits that identified compliance and control weaknesses in Human Resources and in court administration cash handling.
Michelle Crawford, city auditor, said the HR compliance review found uneven documentation of recruitment and hiring steps after the city's 2022 transition to Workday and the 2023 change for public-safety hiring. The audit noted incomplete files and missing support for background and other hiring steps, and identified access‑control risks. Crawford summarized selected findings: I‑9 compliance was 88% on the public‑safety side; transcript-collection compliance was 46% for HR citywide and 96% on the public‑safety side. The auditor recommended updated policies and procedures, better use of Workday as the system of record, and regular access reviews.
Crawford's second audit, a cash‑handling review of court administration, concluded the auditor "cannot provide any assurance" that adequate internal controls existed or were working as intended due to insufficient documentation, reporting data and system concerns; she said the court's internally developed receipts system could not produce standard financial reports and that screenshots were the only way to obtain documentation outside the system. The court handles roughly $1 million in cash and checks per year, the auditor said. Specific problems identified in the cash-handling audit included lack of receipts for bonds and offender registrations at the detention side (detention began using a manual receipt book during the audit), unsecured bonds accessible to multiple employees, vendor checks made payable to employees totaling about $2,300 across the review period, delayed logging of payments (as many as 95 days), insufficient documentation for small expenditures (around $210 in undocumented cash tips) and $1,214 in gift cards without adequate recipient records. The auditor recommended an independent third‑party assessment of system controls or migration to a supported system, development of standard reports, purchase of a drop safe (the court purchased a safe in February), written vendor agreements for vending machines and training and policy updates to prohibit cashing checks for inmates or vendors.
Court administration representatives said they requested the audit to identify legacy practices to correct and described work already under way, including a new financial supervisor, updated cash-handling policies and initial changes implemented during the audit. Committee members pressed for a follow-up status update and for a third‑party controls assessment; the auditor recommended a six‑month check in for progress reporting and said the independent-controls review may take longer depending on scope. The committee asked court administration to coordinate with IT and the auditor on system reporting and remediation.
