Auditors find gaps in Michigan Department of State branch records and procedures; department says fixes underway

The House Appropriations Subcommittee on General Government heard on Jan. 20 from the Office of the Auditor General and the Michigan Department of State about a recent performance audit of the branch operations division.

Robert Lock, an audit manager, and Katie Snyder, the audit supervisor for the project, told the committee they set three objectives for the review: assess customer-service data collection, evaluate safeguarding of assets, and test compliance with selected state and federal requirements. "We established 3 audit objectives," Lock said, and the audit used on-site branch visits and a sample of branch transactions drawn from the department’s CARS data to evaluate practices.

The audit concluded the branch operations division generally safeguarded assets and provided sufficient customer service but identified four reportable issues. Finding 1 said the division should strengthen collection and use of customer-service information because wait-time measurement varied by branch and the auditors found limited customer-feedback data; the report notes the auditors observed procedures at a sample of 13 of 131 branches and identified 693 customer comments from Oct. 1, 2022, through May 31, 2024 — “less than one-half of 1% of the 7,000,000 customers served” in that period. Finding 2 flagged recordkeeping gaps for Real ID and enhanced ID transactions: from a statewide sample of 60 transactions (12…