Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Fleet Management topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Audit finds gaps in Knox County Sheriff’s Office fleet management; auditors recommend formal fleet manual, maintenance tracking, payroll fixes
Summary
An internal audit found no evidence of fraud in KCSO’s fleet but identified four areas for improvement: informal policies and civilian-driver training, late preventative maintenance (52% in sample), taxable fringe benefits not applied for most civilian take‑home vehicles, and discrepancies in capital‑asset lists.
Harrison Lewis and Nathan Wallace of Knox County Internal Audit presented a KCSO fleet management audit on June 16 that found no substantial evidence of fraud but identified four areas needing action.
“We did not find any substantial evidence of fraud, waste, or abuse by KCSO fleet,” Lewis said. The audit covered KCSO vehicles and program participants from Nov. 15, 2023, through Nov. 15, 2024, and noted KCSO’s fleet accounts for about half of the county’s roughly 1,000 vehicles.
The audit’s principal findings: auditors urged KCSO to adopt a formal fleet operations manual because, while general orders exist, many day‑to‑day processes are not documented and civilian drivers lack a department‑administered safe‑driver training course. The report pointed to a lack of a dedicated fleet safety program for KCSO compared with other county fleets.
On maintenance, auditors tested Jiffy Lube invoices and applied a buffer of 30 days and 1,000 miles to account for operational realities. Even with that allowance, auditors reported that 33 of 63 sampled maintenance visits occurred after the buffer, and summarized the issue as: “52% of the maintenance visit sampled did not make it into the shop on time or within their mileage limit.” The audit recommended expanding and integrating the county’s RMS (records management system) to automate maintenance reminders and compliance tracking; KCSO staff told auditors they are continuing to develop RMS modules to improve tracking.
Auditors raised payroll and tax compliance concerns: among 24 civilian employees assigned take‑home vehicles, supporting payroll records showed just two had the taxable fringe benefit properly applied. The auditors cited IRS Publication 15‑B and explained that a ‘‘working condition’’ exclusion generally applies to patrol officers but not automatically to civilian drivers; they recommended payroll coordinate with legal counsel to determine whether deductions should be applied prospectively or retroactively. Lewis said the likely financial impact is small but that closer attention is warranted to avoid incorrect wage and tax statements.
The report also flagged discrepancies between the KCSO vehicle list (531 active vehicles reported by KCSO) and the County Finance capital‑asset list; auditors found missing make/model entries and some identical VINs with inconsistent make/model information. Auditors recommended reconciliation and better communication between KCSO fleet management and County Finance.
The audit included opportunities for improvement (not formal findings): implementing vehicle GPS tagging (auditors noted officers’ body cameras and phones provide GPS but civilian vehicles are tracked only by assigned phones), instituting odometer/mileage reconciliation processes for civilian vehicles, and ensuring CDL holders are included in a dedicated CDL random drug‑testing pool per FMCSA guidance.
KCSO representatives responded in writing and during the meeting, indicating they concurred with the recommendations and will work toward developing a comprehensive fleet operations manual and improved RMS usage. The audit team signaled it will follow up in future engagements to check implementation. The committee did not take formal action on the audit report during the meeting; the report was presented for information and management response was recorded.
