Council auditors flag documentation gaps and monitoring weaknesses in grants and contracts audit

The council auditor’s office presented Report 901 to the Finance Committee on March 3, detailing findings from an extended audit of grants and direct contracts covering roughly a two‑year period.

Auditor Kim Taylor summarized the top‑level results: “Out of the 1,300,000 payments that we tested, dollars 477,000 either had no support or insufficient support,” and several payments were made on reimbursement bases when the contract required performance-based payments. The audit also found missing monitoring procedures for direct contracts, incomplete compliance with ordinance/code monitoring requirements, and budget-line changes made without proper authorization.

Taylor told the committee the tested transactions were largely from the prior administration; the audit team worked with current division leadership throughout the audit, and officials have begun implementing corrective actions. Taylor said specific time frames for completion of corrective steps were included in responses and that auditors plan a follow-up engagement in the fall to test more recent transactions under the current administration.

Councilmembers said they were concerned about the scale of the documentation issues and urged a timely follow-up. An administration representative told the committee roughly 74% of corrective actions have already been implemented and described plans to re-run the audit after the division completes its updates.