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Audit of the Norfolk Sheriff’s Office—Civil Process Division Objectives, Scope, and Methodology

An overview of the purpose and process of auditing the Norfolk Sheriff’s Office—Civil Process Division

Table of Contents

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 Norfolk Sheriff’s Office (NSO) Civil Process Division (CPD) for the period January 1, 2017 through December 31, 2018.

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 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

  1. Does CPD collect fees for the delivery of legal services in accordance with Chapter 262 of the General Laws and with NSO policies and procedures?

Yes

  1. Does CPD administer its contracting process for goods and services in accordance with its policies and procedures?

No; see Finding 3

  1. Does CPD administer non-payroll expenses in accordance with its policies and procedures?

Yes

  1. Does CPD reconcile its bank accounts monthly?

No; see Finding 1

  1. Does CPD authorize payments to Deputy Sheriffs for weekly activity in accordance with its policies and procedures?

No; see Finding 2

 

To achieve our audit objectives, we gained an understanding of the internal control environment we determined to be relevant to our audit objectives by reviewing NSO’s internal control plan (ICP), titled CSD 302 Internal Control Plan, and NSO policies and procedures; reviewing applicable laws and regulations; and conducting interviews with CPD staff members and managers. We tested the design and effectiveness of controls over the collection of fees for the delivery of legal services, the administration of the contracting process for goods and services, non-payroll expenses, and the authorization of payments made to Deputy Sheriffs for weekly activity.

Additionally, we performed the following procedures.

Collection of Fees for the Delivery of Legal Services

To determine whether CPD charged and collected fees in accordance with rates established by Chapter 262 of the General Laws and NSO policies and procedures, we selected a random nonstatistical sample of 60 jackets from a total population of 26,818 jackets that were generated during our audit period. We then compared fee rates charged for each jacket from our sample to the fees defined in Sections 8, 10, and 15 of Chapter 262 of the General Laws, as well as NSO policies and procedures.

Contracting Process for Goods and Services

To determine whether NSO properly administered its contracting process for goods and services funded through CPD’s General Revenue account, we obtained a list of the 26 contracts funded through this account at some point during the audit period. From the list, we selected the 12 that were initiated and terminated within our audit period, and we reviewed the contracting process for compliance with procedures established in NSO’s ICP and guidelines in the Commonwealth’s Standard Contract Form.

Administration of Non-Payroll Expenses

To determine whether CPD administered its non-payroll expenses in accordance with its policies and procedures, we selected a random nonstatistical sample of 35 vendors from a total population of 135 non-contracted vendors that submitted invoices for non-payroll goods or services during our audit period. We reviewed the associated expenditures to determine whether any duplicate payments were made to any vendor for the same service on the same date and whether receipts for goods and services were verified before payment.

Reconciling Bank Accounts

CPD maintains the following five bank accounts.2

  1. General Revenue account: The primary checking account maintained by the NSO Finance Department. The division’s bills, office supplies, and other budgeted items are paid for out of this account by the Finance Department.
  2. Escrow account: A non-interest-bearing checking account that holds third-party funds.
  3. Escrow Variance account: An account whose purpose is identical to that of the Escrow account; however, the balance of this account is from civil actions that occurred before the civil process was computerized in 1996.
  4. Witness Fee, Registry, and Refund account: An interest-bearing account used to administer witness fees, refunds to CPD customers who have overpaid, and miscellaneous contractual services such as US Post Office payment fees.
  5. Electronic Funding account: A checking account designed to accept only credit card, e-check, and PayPal payments. Once a deposit has cleared this account, a disbursement check is paid to CPD’s General Revenue account and the customer account is credited.

All CPD financial activity is recorded in QuickBooks.3 Monthly bank statements are reconciled to the monthly QuickBooks statements.

During our audit period, CPD was transitioning from Randolph Savings Bank to Eastern Bank. During this transition, three separate CPD accounts were split between these two banks. The overlap was necessary to allow for all checks from Randolph Savings Bank to clear. The overlap affected the following accounts:

  • General Revenue: January 2017 through March 2018 (15 months)
  • Witness Fee, Registry, and Refund: January 2017 through December 2017 (12 months)
  • Escrow: January 2017 through March 2018 (15 months)

To determine whether bank reconciliations were conducted in a timely manner, we reviewed a random nonstatistical sample of 49 reconciliations from a total population of 162 reconciliations performed during our audit period.

Authorizing Payments to Deputy Sheriffs

To determine whether the correct fees were assessed for the delivery of service and whether the correct commissions were paid to Deputy Sheriffs, we selected a random nonstatistical sample of 60 jackets from a total population of 26,818 jackets created during our audit period. We reviewed the fees charged to determine whether they were consistent with those in Chapter 262 of the General Laws and whether the commissions were paid in accordance with CPD policy.

To determine whether Deputy Sheriffs’ biweekly payrolls authorized by NSO were processed correctly through its contracted payroll service, we selected a random nonstatistical sample of 20 out of 52 pay periods during the audit period. We reconciled all of the contracted payroll service’s issued checks’ amounts for these pay periods to CivilServe payroll reports and to CPD’s General Revenue account bank statements.

Data Reliability

We determined the reliability of data from CivilServe, QuickBooks, and Aestiva (a procurement application that automates the purchase order process) by performing interviews and reviewing certain information technology controls over account management, security training and identification, and authentication policies and procedures.

We ensured the completeness and accuracy of our contract data by selecting the 12 contracts that were initiated and terminated during our audit period from binders containing the original source documents maintained at the Braintree Public Safety Office. We then reconciled maximum obligation4 dollar amounts documented in these contracts to actual expenses paid from the CPD General Revenue account.

To determine the completeness and accuracy of service fee data created during the audit period, we directly extracted the data from jackets maintained in CivilServe. We reconciled the data to QuickBooks and the CPD General Revenue account.

To determine the completeness and accuracy of our sample of payments made to Deputy Sheriffs, we extracted payment information from CivilServe and traced invoiced fees to biweekly payroll reports provided by CPD’s contracted payroll service and reconciled to the CPD General Revenue account.

We determined that the data from Aestiva, CivilServe, and QuickBooks were sufficiently reliable for the purposes of this audit.

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

2.    The division’s Witness Fee Variance account balance was transferred to the Witness Fee, Registry, and Refund account and closed in August 2019.

3.    QuickBooks is an accounting software package often used by small and midsized entities.

4.    This is the maximum amount of money that can be expensed during a contract term.

Date published: February 5, 2020

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