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 Sheriff’s Office (WCSO) for the period July 1, 2016 through June 30, 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 and the conclusion we reached regarding each objective.
|
Objective |
Conclusion |
|
Yes |
|
Yes |
|
Yes |
To achieve our objectives, we gained an understanding of the internal controls we determined to be relevant to our audit objectives by reviewing applicable laws, regulations, and agency policies and procedures, as well as conducting inquiries with WCSO’s staff and management. We evaluated the design and effectiveness of controls over non-payroll expenses, staff overtime, and contracting and determined whether they operated as intended during the audit period.
Additionally, we performed the procedures described below.
Non-Payroll Expenses
We obtained WCSO’s state appropriation expenditure data from the Massachusetts Management Accounting and Reporting System (MMARS) and selected a statistical random sample of 40 non-payroll transactions (totaling $429,385) from a population of 7,208 (totaling $26,172,494) that WCSO made during our audit period. We selected the sample with a 95% confidence level and a 7.5% tolerable error rate with an expected error rate of zero. However, we did not project the result to the entire population. We requested supporting documentation, such as invoices and purchase orders, and reviewed the descriptions of the expenditures to determine whether they were supported and directly applicable to WCSO’s mission.
Overtime
We obtained records from MMARS of all overtime paid from WCSO’s state appropriation during the audit period. We selected a nonstatistical judgmental sample of 60 overtime payments (totaling $60,912) from a population of 12,787 overtime payments (totaling $6,278,881). We reviewed roll-call and payroll logs used by WCSO to document the need for overtime. In addition, we reviewed timesheets for supervisory approval of overtime.
Contracting Process
We obtained WCSO state appropriation expenditure data for our audit period from MMARS and summarized it by fiscal year and by vendor. We selected a nonstatistical judgmental sample of 25 vendors with cumulative payments equal to or greater than $10,000 in a fiscal year (totaling $8,394,851) from a population of 165 (totaling $25,073,433). (WCSO policies require that a contract be executed for payments over $10,000.) We requested the procurement files for these vendors and reviewed supporting documentation such as purchase orders, requests for responses, bids received, and quotes obtained to assess whether goods and services were procured in accordance with WCSO’s policies.
Data Reliability
In 2018, OSA performed a data reliability assessment of MMARS focused on testing controls (access controls, application controls, configuration management, contingency planning, and segregation of duties) for the period April 1, 2017 through March 31, 2018. Additionally, we tested certain information system controls related to personnel training and screening.
Further, as part of our current audit, we selected a random sample of 32 invoices from WCSO’s files and traced the information on the invoices to data in MMARS. We also judgmentally selected 33 transactions from MMARS and determined whether the information from MMARS matched the physical documentation (i.e., invoices). We determined that the information obtained from MMARS for our audit period was sufficiently reliable for our audit work.
We determined the reliability of data obtained from the state’s Self-Service Time and Attendance (SSTA) system, Kronos time-reporting system, and Microsoft SharePoint expenditure system by interviewing WCSO personnel and performing observations. We also performed the following tests:
- We selected a nonstatistical judgmental sample of 33 SSTA records and determined whether information in SSTA matched information in hardcopy employee personnel files. We also selected a nonstatistical judgmental sample of 32 employee personnel files and traced information in the personnel files to SSTA for agreement.
- We selected a nonstatistical judgmental sample of 40 overtime instances from Kronos and determined whether the information in Kronos matched the information in hardcopy roll-call and payroll logs. We also selected a nonstatistical judgmental sample of 40 overtime instances from the roll-call and payroll logs and traced them to Kronos for agreement.
- We selected a nonstatistical random sample of 33 SharePoint transactions and determined whether the information in SharePoint matched information on hardcopy invoices. We judgmentally selected an additional 32 hardcopy invoices and traced the information thereon to SharePoint for agreement. Further, we tested certain information technology controls over security management and access controls.
We determined that the data obtained from SSTA, Kronos, and SharePoint for our audit period were sufficiently reliable for our audit work.
Except for testing of non-payroll expenses, we used nonstatistical sampling methods and therefore did not project the results of our testing to the population.
| Date published: | March 11, 2019 |
|---|