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CommCorp Did Not Submit Required Payroll and Expenditure Information to the Commonwealth to Be Made Available to the Public on a Searchable Website.

The audit found CommCorp submitted incomplete payroll and expenditure information to the state Comptroller’s transparency website, CTHRU, for 2016 and 2017.
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Overview

During our audit period, CommCorp submitted incomplete payroll and expenditure information (payroll data and financial statements) to the Executive Office for Administration and Finance (EOAF) to be made available to the public on a searchable website. Specifically, for calendar year 2016, there was no CommCorp payroll information on the CTHRU website, nor was there any expenditure or payroll information for fiscal and calendar year 2017. As a result, CommCorp did not allow the Commonwealth to give the public a sufficient level of transparency regarding CommCorp’s operations, including its overall financial health and the nature and extent of its expenses.

Authoritative Guidance

Section 14C of Chapter 7 of the Massachusetts General Laws requires agencies, including quasi-public independent entities such as CommCorp, to report their “appropriations, expenditures, grants, subgrants, loans, purchase orders, infrastructure assistance and other forms of financial assistance” to the Secretary of EOAF for inclusion on the Comptroller of the Commonwealth’s (CTR’s) searchable website. Section 14C(e) states, “All agencies shall provide to the secretary all data that is required to be included in the searchable website not later than 30 days after the data becomes available to the agency.”

Reasons for Noncompliance

According to CommCorp management, they were aware of the financial reporting requirements but not the procedures they needed to follow to meet them. In addition, CommCorp had not established policies and procedures regarding the submission of this information to EOAF for inclusion on CTR’s searchable website.

Recommendations

  1. CommCorp should contact CTR to obtain an understanding of how to submit information to EOAF for posting to CTR’s searchable website and submit all the required information for fiscal and calendar years 2016 and 2017 as well as any deficient fiscal and calendar years before our audit period.
  2. CommCorp should develop and implement policies and procedures for collecting the required payroll and expenditure information and submitting it to the Secretary of EOAF for posting to CTR’s website. CommCorp should also establish monitoring controls to ensure that the policies and procedures are adhered to.

Auditee’s Response

Throughout the audit period Commonwealth Corporation maintained several years of audited financial statements on our website. Commonwealth Corporation has been engaged with the Office of the Comptroller since April 2018 to ensure the submission and posting of all required financial information. Payroll data for ten years, 2009–2018, are now posted on the Comptroller’s CTHRU searchable website. We are actively working with the Office of the Comptroller to upload financial expenses to the CTHRU website.

Commonwealth Corporation has developed policies and procedures to ensure payroll and expense data are uploaded to the Commonwealth’s CTHRU searchable website every year. The policies and procedures include the responsibility of the Director of Human Resources to serve in a monitoring capacity to ensure adherence to the policy and procedures.

Date published: March 19, 2019

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