Audit of the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women Objectives, Scope, and Methodology

An overview of the purpose and process of auditing the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women.

Overview

In accordance with Section 12 of Chapter 11 of the Massachusetts General Laws, the Office of the State Auditor has conducted a performance audit of certain activities of the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women (MCSW) for the period January 1, 2021 through December 31, 2023.

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.

Below is a list of our audit objectives, indicating each question we intended our audit to answer; the conclusion we reached regarding each objective; and, if applicable, where each objective is discussed in the audit findings.

Objective	Conclusion
Did MCSW ensure that its annual report was submitted on time to the Governor and the clerks of the House of Representatives and Senate as required by Section 66(3) of Chapter 3 of the General Laws?	No; see Finding 1
Did MCSW establish and implement policies and procedures to ensure that its newly appointed and reappointed commissioners provided a signed Certificate of Receipt of Open Meeting Law materials as required by Section 20(h) of Chapter 30A of the General Laws?	No; see Finding 2
Did MCSW ensure that its newly appointed and reappointed commissioners completed Conflict of Interest Law training as required by Section 28 of Chapter 268A of the General Laws?	No; see Finding 3

To accomplish our audit objectives, we gained an understanding of the internal controls that we determined to be relevant to our objectives by reviewing MCSW’s policies, procedures, and internal control plan and by interviewing MCSW staff members and officials.

To obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to address our audit objectives, we performed the procedures described below.

Submission of Annual Reports

To determine whether MCSW submitted its annual report to the required government bodies, in accordance with Section 66 of Chapter 3 of the General Laws, we requested emails sent to the required government bodies for each year within the audit period. We examined the emails sent to the Governor, the House clerk, and the Senate clerk’s office, which included a copy of MCSW’s annual report for each year within the audit period. We determined whether the emails were sent to the required government bodies on or before the required deadline of June 2.

See Finding 1 for issues we identified in MCSW’s submission of its annual report by the required deadline.

Open Meeting Law Compliance

To determine whether MCSW established and implemented policies and procedures to ensure that all its newly appointed and reappointed commissioners provided a signed certificate of receipt of the Open Meeting Law materials, we inspected the MCSW Policy Manual to ensure that the requirements of Section 20(h) of Chapter 30A of the General Laws were implemented in agency policy. We interviewed MCSW officials and determined that, for the period January 1, 2021 through December 31, 2021, MCSW did not consistently track whether newly appointed and reappointed commissioners provided their certificates of receipt of the Open Meeting Law materials and completion of training requirements.

To determine MCSW’s compliance with the Open Meeting Law during the period January 1, 2022 through December 31, 2023, we took the following actions:

• We obtained the commissioner list of all commissioners, which tracked when commissioners were appointed/reappointed and terminated, listing a total of 88 regional and state commissioners.
• We judgmentally selected a random, nonstatistical⁴ sample of 20 commissioners and requested their signed certificates of receipt of Open Meeting Law materials and completion of the Open Meeting Law training online course.
• We determined whether the newly appointed and reappointed commissioners provided their certifications of their receipt of Open Meeting Law materials within two weeks of these commissioners’ qualifying for office.
• We determined whether newly appointed and reappointed commissioners provided their certification of completion of the Open Meeting Law online training course within the required 30 days of qualifying for office.

See Finding 2 for issues identified in ensuring that these requirements were completed within the required time frame by newly appointed and reappointed commissioners.

Conflict of Interest Law Training Compliance

To determine whether MCSW ensured that its newly appointed and reappointed commissioners completed the Conflict of Interest Law training as required by Section 28 of Chapter 268A of the General Laws, we interviewed MCSW officials and determined that, for the period January 1, 2021 through December 31, 2021, MCSW did not consistently track completion of Conflict of Interest Law training requirements.

To determine whether MCSW ensured that newly appointed and reappointed commissioners completed Conflict of Interest Law training in the required time frame during the period January 1, 2022 through December 31, 2023, we took the following actions:

• We obtained a MCSW spreadsheet of commissioner appointments, listing a total of 88 regional and state commissioners.
• We judgmentally selected a random, nonstatistical sample of 20 commissioners and requested the certificates of completion of the Conflict of Interest Law online training course.
• We determined whether MCSW received commissioners’ certificates of completion of the Conflict of Interest Law online training course within 30 days of these commissioners’ qualifying for office.

See Finding 3 for issues identified in ensuring that newly appointed and reappointed commissioners completed the training in the required time frame.

We used nonstatistical sampling methods for testing and, therefore, did not project the results of our testing to any population.

Data Reliability Assessment

To determine the reliability of data on the MCSW spreadsheet of commissioner appointments during the audit period, we interviewed management employees who were responsible for the source data. Further, we used electronic spreadsheet functionality to identify hidden cells and rows, duplicate records, and blank fields and noted no exceptions. To determine the completeness of the MCSW spreadsheet of commissioner appointments, we selected a random sample of 20 commissioners from the commissioner spreadsheet and compared information from the list, such as each commissioner’s name, appointing body, town/city, county, and appointment start and end dates, to each commissioner’s letter of appointment from the appointing body. We also selected a random sample of 20 commissioners from the commissioners’ letters of appointment who were appointed and reappointed during the audit period and compared the same information to the spreadsheet of commissioner appointments for agreement.

Based on the results of our data reliability assessment procedures, we determined that the MCSW spreadsheet of commissioner appointments data was sufficiently reliable for the purposes of our audit.

4.    Auditors use judgmental (i.e., nonstatistical) sampling to select items for audit testing when a population is very small, the population items are not similar enough, or there are specific items in the population that the auditors want to review. Auditors use their knowledge and judgment to select the most appropriate sample. For example, an auditor might select items from areas of high risk. The results of testing using judgmental sampling cannot be used to make conclusions or projections about entire populations; however, they can be used to identify specific issues, risks, or weaknesses.

Date published:	December 27, 2024