El Paso FOAC selects chair and reviews city finance operations, audit plan and internal audit processes

The Financial Oversight and Audit Committee (FOAC) for the City of El Paso elected Representative Acevedo as its chair and spent much of its meeting receiving briefings on the city’s comptroller, budget and treasury functions, grants administration, and internal audit operations — including a detailed discussion about the committee’s audit-plan process and follow-up procedures.

Robert Cortinez, a city finance presenter, told committee members the session would cover both the Office of the Comptroller and the Office of Management and Budget. “This presentation is really gonna provide you an overview of really 2 different departments that have a key role in the overall financial services function of the city of El Paso,” Cortinez said as he introduced the offices and their roles.

The briefing described department missions, staffing and recent recognitions. Margarita Marin, the city’s deputy CFO and comptroller, summarized the comptroller’s responsibilities and the office’s emphasis on internal controls and public reporting. “We are very heavily regulated … we have guidance that we follow through GASB,” Marin said, later noting the finance offices have produced consecutive, clean external audits. Marin and other presenters said the city has had eight consecutive years with no audit findings.

Grants administration: centralized oversight and scale

Elda Rodriguez Hefner, grants administrator in the comptroller’s office, described the city’s centralized grants function and its workload. “We usually work with anywhere from 15 to 20 federal agencies, 15 to 20 state agencies,” Rodriguez Hefner said. She told FOAC that since Fiscal Year 2016 the centralized program has overseen more than $1.4 billion in awards and has managed more than $1.0 billion in expenditures since FY2017; she also said the office tracked roughly 341 federal active grants and about 53 state/federal active grants in FY2024. On average, about 23% of the city’s grants require a local match, she later confirmed.

Treasury and investments

Luis Mier, treasury services coordinator, explained the city’s pooled investment approach and liquidity management. He said the city’s formal investment program established in 2017 has generated cumulative earnings in excess of $120 million through January 2025 and that the portfolio’s blended yield was about 4% at the time of the presentation. Mier explained the treasury function’s three priorities — preservation of capital, liquidity and earnings — and noted the city is restricted to fixed-income investments under state law and the city’s investment policy.

Budget and oversight role of FOAC

Bonnie Cordova, interim director of the Office of Management and Budget, reviewed the city’s budget cycle and said the office prepares the multiyear financial outlook, a budget manual, and the position-budgeting process; Cordova confirmed the multiyear outlook covers five years. Marin and Cordova both emphasized FOAC’s oversight role under the city charter (Section 3.6(b)), saying the committee’s responsibilities include review of audit results, review and recommendation on internal controls, and presentation of recommendations to the full city council when appropriate.

Internal audit presentation and committee process debate

Mundo Calderon, the city’s chief internal auditor, gave an extended overview of the internal audit office’s mission, staffing and professional standards. Calderon said the office has nine professional auditors with a range of certifications and that it follows both international/internal-audit standards and the Government Accountability Office’s Generally Accepted Government Auditing Standards. “My philosophy has always been, I am not an ‘I got you’ auditor,” Calderon said, describing the office’s emphasis on helping departments improve controls and on performing follow-up reviews of prior audit recommendations.

Calderon also described specialized audit work: hotel-occupancy-tax audits that have identified roughly $3 million in additional taxes over several years, sales-tax discovery work that has yielded a small number of newly registered taxpayers, franchise-fee reviews and monitoring of the city’s anonymous employee hotline. He said the hotline averages about 60 contacts a year and that the internal audit office retains the hotline records and refers allegations to human resources or law enforcement when appropriate.

Audit-plan timing and draft/follow-up procedures

Committee members pressed Calderon on the audit plan, the timing of draft reports, and how management responses and corrective-action commitments are handled. Calderon described the office’s current practice: issuing a draft report to the audited department, collecting management’s written response (including a responsible party and an implementation date), and then distributing a final report once responses are received. He also described the office’s policy of conducting follow-up audits after the department’s stated implementation dates.

Several committee members proposed tightening and formalizing that process — asking for a clearer corrective-action plan (CAP) format, more predictable deadlines, and a stronger link between FOAC review and council action. Representative Chavez and others said they want audited departments to have an opportunity to appear at FOAC meetings when their reports are discussed. Calderon and members agreed to continue that discussion and to consult with Weaver, the external reviewer working with FOAC on process improvements.

Committee action and procedural outcome

At the meeting’s start, the committee unanimously approved a motion to nominate Representative Acevedo as FOAC chair. Later, after a lengthy discussion of the internal audit quarterly update and the audit plan, the committee initially moved and approved an action to accept the FY2024–25 first-quarter audit-plan update; following member concerns about pending items and report status the committee voted to rescind that approval and declared the plan update an information item to be reworked with FOAC leadership and staff.

What FOAC asked staff to do next

Committee members asked staff to: (1) provide more detail on permit-review timelines and staffing for the Planning and Inspections material discussed in an audit; (2) share the grants-expenditure summary that is posted on the city website; (3) prepare a clearer CAP template showing responsible party and milestone dates; (4) post FOAC meeting dates in advance where practical so the committee can schedule timely follow-ups (members suggested monthly meetings around budget season); and (5) coordinate with Weaver on recommended procedural changes for draft distribution and follow-up scheduling.

The meeting closed after additional questions on audit timing and communications, with members agreeing to continue the process-improvement conversation over the next months. No legislative ordinance, resolution or budget adoption was voted on during the session.

Ending

The committee adjourned after roughly three hours and set direction for staff to return with clarified timelines, a proposed CAP format for audits, and a proposed FOAC meeting calendar. Committee members and staff agreed to continue the discussion after Weaver finishes its review of FOAC processes.