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Audit finds documentation errors in majority of sampled airport contracts; aviation and finance staff agree to explore automation
Summary
A city auditor told the committee that 45 of 49 sampled Austin Aviation contracts had documentation errors (missing or expired insurance, missing executive contracts); aviation and Austin Financial Services said they will pursue training, staffing and procurement‑system changes to centralize and automate documents.
The Office of City Auditor presented an audit of Austin Aviation’s contract and vendor management to the Audit & Finance Committee on Dec. 3, finding widespread documentation errors and recommending increased review, training, and exploration of technology to improve contract administration.
Auditor Christina Kern said the audit examined two aviation contract teams that together manage more than 700 contracts and sampled 49 contracts; 45 of those 49 sampled contracts had documentation errors, most commonly missing documentation, expired insurance certificates, or missing executive contract uploads. The audit’s three recommendations asked Austin Aviation to strengthen contract administration and monitoring by (1) ensuring documentation is reviewed by another person and maintained timely, (2) developing and holding regular documentation/monitoring training, and (3) exploring available technology to improve the current aviation contract management systems. Management agreed with the recommendations.
Ghislaine Badawi, Austin Aviation CEO, told the committee aviation has added staff, procured an industry‑specialized system (Procore) for construction contracts, and recently hired commercial‑management staff; she described collaborative processes with Austin Financial Services for uploading contract files and insurance certificates. James Scarborough of Austin Financial Services said certificates of insurance are submitted centrally to Financial Services and confirmed a city procurement/financial system project is intended to include certificate management to reduce duplication and errors.
Committee members asked whether vendors could upload required documents directly; auditors and aviation staff said the recommendation to explore technology aims to address manual entry risks, and staff committed to examine automation and system integrations as part of a broader procurement system selection and implementation next year.
The committee did not adopt policy or budgetary action during the briefing; staff said they will return with updates as the procurement system selection and implementation progress.
