Audit of the Worcester County District Attorney's Office (Middle District) Objective, Scope and Methodology

An explanation of what this audit examined and how it was conducted.

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 Worcester County District Attorney’s Office—Middle District (WCDA) for the period July 1, 2014 through December 31, 2016. When reviewing the Young Adult Diversion Program, we extended our audit period to begin June 1, 2013. When reviewing the Victim/Witness Assistance Program, we extended our audit period to include the period October 4, 2013 through March 30, 2017.

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
Does WCDA administer and evaluate its Young Adult Diversion Program to ensure that it meets all of its goals?	No; see Findings 1a, 1b, and 1c
Does WCDA’s Victim/Witness Assistance Program provide assistance throughout the court process to victims and witnesses of domestic violence, murder, and attempted murder as required by Section 5 of Chapter 258B of the General Laws?	Yes
Does WCDA expend drug-forfeiture funds on its Drug Forfeiture Community Reinvestment Program in accordance with the purpose of the program as required by Chapter 257B of the General Laws?	Yes

To achieve our objectives, we gained an understanding of WCDA’s internal control environment related to our audit objectives by reviewing applicable laws, regulations, and agency policies and procedures, as well as conducting inquiries with WCDA’s staff and management. We also evaluated the design and tested the effectiveness of controls over WCDA’s Drug Forfeiture Community Reinvestment Program.

Additionally, we performed the following procedures:

• For the period June 1, 2013 through December 31, 2016, we reviewed a nonstatistical, random sample of 50 out of 402 participants in the Young Adult Diversion Program to determine whether they met stated eligibility guidelines and whether they successfully completed all program requirements: paying $100 for court costs, completing an online education program, and performing eight hours of community service. We also reviewed the sample of 50 participants to determine whether they had committed crimes after successfully completing the program.
• We reviewed a nonstatistical, random sample of 60 of 11,498 cases tried during the audit period involving charges of domestic violence, murder, and attempted murder to ensure that WCDA offered victims and witnesses of crimes the rights and services governed by Section 5 of Chapter 258B of the General Laws.
• We reviewed a nonstatistical, random sample of 50 of 254 expenditures made from drug-forfeiture funds during the audit period to determine whether the expenditures were made in accordance with WCDA’s Programmatic Policies for requesting, documenting, and approving the expenditure of funds.

We obtained criminal case data from the District Attorney Management Information Office Network system, which is the case-management system WCDA uses. Accordingly, we reviewed the controls WCDA had implemented regarding access to this system, as well as user roles and responsibilities. We traced a sample of cases to hardcopy court records for agreement. In addition, we obtained court records from the Trial Court’s automated case-management system (MassCourts) to identify payments and criminal records for Young Adult Diversion Program participants. We traced source documents to MassCourts records for agreement. We determined that the data were sufficiently reliable for audit testing.

We used WCDA’s QuickBooks-based accounting system to obtain financial data related to expenditures of forfeited funds made as part of the Drug Forfeiture Community Reinvestment Program during the audit period. To determine the reliability of the data, we traced source documents to data produced with QuickBooks and analyzed the access rights of authorized users of the system. Based on our audit work, we determined that the data were sufficiently reliable for our purposes.

Based on a prior assessment of the Massachusetts Management Accounting and Reporting System (MMARS) performed by OSA and our current comparison of source documentation with MMARS information, we determined that the data obtained from MMARS for our audit were sufficiently reliable for the purposes of our audit work.²

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

2. In 2014, OSA performed a data-reliability assessment of MMARS. As part of this assessment, we tested general information-technology controls for system design and effectiveness. We tested for accessibility of programs and data as well as system change management policies and procedures for applications, jobs, and infrastructure.

Date published:	March 23, 2018