Audit: Knox County court records migration to Tensus largely successful; minor data inconsistencies flagged

At the June 22, 2026 meeting of the Knox County Audit Committee, Nathan Wallace of Internal Audit presented a performance audit of the clerk and master data migration that moved case records from the legacy Gyms and FoxPro systems into the statewide Tensus platform. The audit covered the period Jan. 30, 2002 through Jan. 30, 2026 and tested a representative sample of 272 cases from a population of 261,954 migrated records.

Internal Audit concluded the migration was successful and found no evidence of material loss. "All sampled cases were successfully identified within Tensus and internal audit did not identify significant issues indicating missing records or material loss of migrated information," Wallace said. The team also tested adoption records and reviewed 7,254 adoption cases present in Gyms to ensure those records were transferred.

Why it matters: court files include confidential records—adoptions, sealed matters and other restricted materials—so accurate migration and preserved confidentiality protections are essential for access, judicial operations and privacy. Auditors confirmed confidentiality settings transferred appropriately for the confidential cases in their sample.

What auditors found: Internal Audit identified 12 sample cases with minor inconsistencies that merit follow-up but did not appear to materially impact case integrity. Those differences fell into two groups: six cases had additional rule docket entries in Tensus that were not present in Gyms (auditors noted these appear to be system-generated during conversion), and six cases showed differences in confidentiality settings. Wallace said auditors "did not identify any evidence that historical docket information was removed or overwritten," and that the added entries appeared to record system activities rather than historical case actions.

Recommendations and management response: Auditors recommended the Clerk & Master’s office work with Knox County IT (KCIT) and the local government corporation (LGC) that hosts Tensus to identify and document the source of the differences and determine corrective steps where needed. The Clerk & Master, Scott Griswald, concurred and described the migration as a major modernization effort. "This was a herculean effort," Griswald said, praising collaboration across KCIT, the Clerk & Master’s office and LGC and noting the migration positions the county for future statewide integration efforts.

Operational improvement: Internal Audit also recommended formal standard operating procedures and staff training on data entry expectations, case classifications and confidentiality designations to reduce the risk that historical inconsistencies are reintroduced in the new system.

Next steps: Management conveyed that they investigated the identified docket-entry additions and concluded they were system-generated and did not materially affect case management data. Internal Audit closed the engagement but asked the Clerk & Master’s office to continue documenting controls and procedures; auditors will follow up through standard recommendation tracking. The committee noted the clerk’s office will undergo additional AUP procedures tied to the Clerk & Master transition at the end of June.

Provenance: Topic introduced SEG 075; last related comment SEG 366.