City auditor flags alleged overpayments and calls for enterprise risk oversight after Helix contract review

The Minneapolis City Auditor told the Public Health & Safety Committee on Sept. 17 that an advisory review of a single-source contract with Helix Health and Housing Services identified substantial concerns in contract oversight and payments.

"The Office of City Auditor identified $177,000 and 462 in what we deemed to be overpayments to Helix Health and Housing Services," Auditor Robert Timmerman said, describing the Nov. 2023 urgent contract that funded culturally specific housing and behavioral-health services for American Indian individuals experiencing homelessness. Timmerman said his office also found gaps in contract management and invoice verification.

Timmerman presented five recommendations to the Health Department and administration: require conflict-of-interest review forms for staff involved in single-source procurements; specify when advance payments are allowed and create an approval process; define allowable and unallowable contract expenses; mandate verification and reconciliation of vendor invoices with supporting documentation before payment; and articulate enterprise policies and procedures for urgent contracting.

The administration has committed in writing to corrective actions, Timmerman said, including a real-time contracts dashboard, clearer written expectations for contract managers, a Contract Lifecycle Mapping and Process Improvement RFP (date given in the presentation), staff training and a planned operations realignment intended to strengthen grants administration and invoice management. He said those system enhancements "should be fully implemented by 2025." Timmerman also urged creating or assigning an enterprise-level risk-management function to hold departments accountable.

Vice Chair Wansley and other council members used the presentation to press for structural changes to procurement and oversight. Wansley said the city already has risk-management staff but questioned whether that function is positioned or resourced to manage enterprise-wide risk. She described work underway to revise purchasing thresholds and require quarterly reporting on a larger set of professional-service contracts.

Council leaders said the audit findings should drive ordinance and process reforms to prevent duplicate or erroneous payments and improve due diligence when urgent contracting is required. Timmerman said the auditor's office will continue to monitor recommendation status and provide updates to the Audit Committee.

The committee accepted the auditor's report and directed clerks to file it; no formal binding policy was adopted in the committee during the meeting. The committee later delayed a separate fee-study item to permit fuller staff briefings at the Oct. 1 meeting.