San Francisco audit committee advances list of proposed 2009 performance audits, highlights DPH purchasing review

The Government Audit & Oversight Committee on Tuesday reviewed a budget analyst’s list of proposed performance audits for 2009 and agreed to advance the package to the Board of Supervisors for further action.

Severn Campbell, of the Budget Analyst’s Office, described a memo assembling potential audits drawn from the Controller’s risk assessment, past audits and budget and legislative reports. She said the top-priority addition discussed with the committee was an audit of the Department of Public Health’s (DPH) purchasing procedures covering pharmaceuticals, materials and potentially professional services, expanding a 2003 hospital purchasing review to the department level.

“That would include Laguna Honda Hospital and Community Health,” Campbell said, adding the department’s materials and supplies purchasing is in the “high millions” and offering an approximate general-fund impact of “probably around 80,000,000,” a figure she identified as an estimate.

Campbell also outlined proposed reviews of jail health services — including inpatient care at San Francisco General — an evaluation of claimed cost savings from consolidation into the General Services Administration, and a management audit of the 311 call center.

Peg Stephenson of the Controller’s Office introduced new audits director Tanya Leyda Hu and described the controller’s audit program funding and approach. Stephenson said city auditing is mostly compliance-oriented, funded through a two-tenths of one percent set-aside in the city budget, but that the office also schedules some performance audits and maintains a risk-score table to prioritize coverage.

Supervisor Sophie Maxwell asked whether compliance audits identify performance problems; Stephenson said compliance reviews often reveal management gaps between contract language and oversight and yield management recommendations.

During public comment, Douglas Shep, who said he works in patient financial services at San Francisco General Hospital, urged performance audits of the hospital’s x-ray and patient financial services departments and volunteered to assist auditors, citing a recent guilty plea by a director at a Stanford hospital as motivation to examine local processes.

Committee members expressed a priority to target audits that can produce near-term general-fund savings. Campbell said the hour estimates in the memo are preliminary and that the office would refine scopes, ask specific questions and work with committee members to fit audits within available staff hours if the committee requests more topics be added.

The committee agreed to move the motion already submitted to the Board of Supervisors forward; the transcript records no roll-call or tally for that procedural action. The item will proceed for scheduling and scope refinement at the Board level.