Audit: Payroll largely accurate but Knox County Schools timekeeping practices conflict with policy

Philip Vincent of Knox County Internal Audit presented the payroll audit for calendar year 2024 on Oct. 20 and said auditors confirmed employee legitimacy and paycheck accuracy in a statistical sample of 68 paychecks. The audit team reported no ghost‑employee issues in the sample and validated tax and benefit withholdings.

However, Vincent said auditors had one core finding: whether work was authorized or approved. The audit found that timecards for certain nonexempt, biweekly employees were not consistently forwarded to payroll; in many cases only overtime or exception time was sent and supervisors retained base time records at the school. "It seems to conflict with the Board of Education policy, g 5 70," Vincent said, reading the policy that requires classified nonexempt employees to keep time records and forward them to payroll.

Auditors explained their sample limitations: the team used one check date (Dec. 20, 2024) and tested a random sample by employee ID, which resulted in fewer biweekly timecards in the sample than intended. The office recommended that Knox County Schools and the Board of Education align written policy with actual payroll practice, document exempt vs. nonexempt classifications consistently, and implement centralized records management. Audit OFIs (opportunities for improvement) included establishing a centralized document repository, switching to active annual benefit enrollment, and instituting monthly employment verification to reduce reliance on legacy or incomplete records.

Philip Vincent noted KCS is implementing new time‑and‑attendance software from Tyler Technologies (Munis) to address timecard and documentation challenges. With those steps, management concurred with the findings and is working to implement the recommendations.

The audit was accepted for information; internal audit will follow up on policy alignment and the deployment of the new timekeeping software.