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Audit of the Bureau of the State House Objectives, Scope, and Methodology

An overview of the purpose and process of auditing the Bureau of the State House

Table of Contents

Overview

In accordance with Section 12 of Chapter 11 of the Massachusetts General Laws, the Office of the State Auditor (OSA) has conducted a performance audit of certain activities of the Bureau of the State House (BSH) for the period July 1, 2017 through December 31, 2019.

We conducted this performance audit in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.

Below is a list of our audit objectives, indicating the questions we intended our audit to answer, the conclusion we reached regarding each objective, and where each objective is discussed in this report.

Objective

Conclusion

  1. Did BSH charge and collect fees for the rental of space in the State House in accordance with Section 9A of Chapter 8, and Section 35P of Chapter 10, of the General Laws and with its internal control plan (ICP)?

See Other Matters

  1. Were expenses that were paid by the State House Special Events Fund (SEF) compliant with Section 9A of Chapter 8, and Section 35P of Chapter 10, of the General Laws and with BSH’s ICP?

No; see Finding 1

 

To achieve our audit objectives, we gained an understanding of the internal control environment related to the objectives by reviewing applicable BSH policies and procedures, interviewing BSH’s staff and management, and observing procedures. We evaluated the design and implementation of controls over the charging and collection of fees and over expenses paid by the SEF, and we tested the operating effectiveness of controls over SEF expenses. In addition, we performed the following procedures to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to address our audit objectives.

Charging and Collection of Fees

To determine whether BSH charged and collected fees for rental of space in the State House in accordance with Section 9A of Chapter 8, and Section 35P of Chapter 10, of the General Laws and with its ICP, we selected a nonstatistical judgmental sample of 45 of 900 events scheduled during the audit period. For events in the sample for which fees were paid, we examined the remittance checks related to the transactions to ensure that the payments were for the correct amounts, according to the BSH fee schedule, and were credited to the SEF in the Massachusetts Management Accounting and Reporting System (MMARS). For events for which no fee was charged, we determined whether there was a valid reason for the non-payment, such as a waiver, rescheduling, or cancelation. Additionally, we verified the nonprofit status of the organizations in the sample by referring to the websites of the Massachusetts Attorney General and/or the Internal Revenue Service.

SEF Expenses

To determine whether the expenses paid by the SEF were in accordance with the General Laws and BSH’s policies, we compared SEF expenses to an “Approved Retained Funds” schedule provided by BSH.

We also selected from MMARS a nonstatistical judgmental sample of 20 SEF expenses (totaling $162,044) from a population of 56 (totaling $206,399). We compared the information in MMARS to vendor invoices for agreement of vendor name, amount, description of goods/services, and expense classification. We also compared the invoices to purchase information (from purchase orders, price lists, or contracts) to ensure that they agreed. We reviewed the expenses to ensure that they were appropriate for the SEF according to BSH’s ICP, Section 35P of Chapter 10 of the General Laws, and Section 9A of Chapter 8 of the General Laws.

Whenever sampling was used, we applied a nonstatistical approach, and as a result, we will not project our results to the entire population.

Data Reliability

In 2018, OSA performed a data reliability assessment of MMARS that focused on testing selected system controls (i.e., access, security awareness, audit and accountability, configuration management, identification and authentication, and personnel security) for the period April 1, 2017 through March 31, 2018. As part of our current audit, we selected a sample of 20 SEF expenses from MMARS and traced them to vendor invoices to determine whether information on the invoices matched data in MMARS. We also reviewed user access to MMARS to ensure that transactions processed were executed by the authorized user.

  • We reconciled information we obtained from the Massachusetts Management Accounting and Reporting System (MMARS) with a revenue tracking spreadsheet (a record showing deposits and the MMARS accounts to which they were credited) provided by BSH’s director of finance.  

To test the reliability of the client event list generated by BSH’s Events Management System (EMS) during the audit period (which included organization names, sponsors, event times and dates, numbers of attendees, and amounts billed), we interviewed BSH officials who were knowledgeable about the data.

We also performed the following tests:

  • We attempted to reconcile MMARS information with the event list.
  • We traced 20 booked events from the event list and determined whether the information on the event list (organization names, sponsors, event times and dates, numbers of attendees, and amounts billed) matched hardcopy event files.
  • We selected 20 hardcopy event files from BSH file cabinets and traced the information (organization names, sponsors, event times and dates, numbers of attendees, and amounts billed) to the event list.

We determined that the data obtained from EMS and MMARS were sufficiently reliable for the purposes of our audit work.

Date published: June 24, 2021

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