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Internal audit update: completed local grants and fisheries audits; IT governance audit canceled after staffing changes
Summary
Internal audit director reported completed audits (local park grants, inland and coastal fisheries KPIs) and recent cancellations of planned IT governance and Active Directory audits owing to staffing and IT migration; IT director said agency maintains cybersecurity dashboards and most data is cloud-hosted.
Brandy Meeks, internal audit director, updated the commission on the internal-audit plan and external assessments. Meeks said TPWD completed audits of local park grants and inland- and coastal-fisheries key performance measures, has begun planning an audit of friends-group oversight processes, and is in fieldwork on post-payment P-card follow-up and related controls. She also reported completion of an IT help-desk audit and said she obtained chairman and vice-chair approval to cancel a planned IT governance audit.
Meeks explained the IT-governance cancellation resulted from hiring an IT auditor who brought credentials allowing the internal team to reprioritize tasks; the agency also is migrating Active Directory to Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure AD), prompting cancellation of an active-directory audit while migration completes. Meeks said TPWD completed a peer review for the DIR quality-assurance review and was working on follow-up items.
Commissioner Foster asked why audits were cancelled; Meeks explained the vacated IT-auditor position had been filled with a candidate with broader qualifications and IT had completed self-assessments that reduced the immediate need for a separate active-directory audit. Commissioner Bell asked about attempted login monitoring; Jamie McClanahan, IT director, said the cybersecurity team and the Department of Information Resources (DIR) provide dashboards that monitor attempted illegitimate logins and that roughly 95% of TPWD data is cloud-hosted. McClanahan said proactive tools and partnership with DIR help block intrusions and that modernization remains an ongoing and costly need; the agency had included an exceptional item in its legislative request to support continued IT upgrades.
Meeks concluded by noting ongoing advisory projects and external reviews (including an NFWF expenditure verification and a FEMA desk review of the Port Security Grant Program).
