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The Massachusetts State Lottery Commission Did Not Conduct All Required Fourth-Year Criminal Offender Record Information Reviews for Its Active Lottery Sales Agents.

Audit showed the Lottery had not conducted Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) reviews for 3,146 (32%) of the 9,732 active lottery sales agents.

Table of Contents

Overview

The Massachusetts State Lottery Commission (MSLC) did not conduct fourth-year Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) reviews for 3,146 (32%) of the 9,732 lottery sales agents who were active during the audit period. Some agents had not received a CORI review since 1998. Of the 3,146 agents without CORI reviews, 251 had no CORI review dates in the Enterprise Series (ES) system, which indicates that they may never have received a CORI review. Therefore, current agents may have criminal records of which MSLC is unaware.

Authoritative Guidance

MSLC’s “Licensing Department Policies and Procedures” state that each active lottery sales agent is required to have a CORI review every 4 years for the duration of the agent’s MSLC license.

Reasons for Issue

Before the ES system was implemented in April 2019, MSLC tracked the CORI review process manually by entering the dates of previous CORI reviews in an Excel spreadsheet and MSLC’s former computer system. This was ineffective, since neither the Excel spreadsheet nor the former computer system identified the date when the next CORI review was needed. Since implementing the ES system, MSLC has processed new CORI reviews promptly and worked to reduce the backlog of CORI reviews as time allows.

Recommendation

MSLC should continue to reduce the backlog of lottery sales agents who have not had CORI reviews.

Auditee’s Response

As noted in the . . . report the MSLC has been vigorously working to reduce the background check backlog. Of the 3,146, the MSLC determined that 670 (20%) were non-profit clubs; this included 201 (80%) of the 250 that did not have a CORI review date. As of the date of this response, the backlog of for-profit agents has been reduced from 2,476 to one, an overall reduction of 99.9%. The backlog of non-profit clubs has been reduced from 670 to 584, an overall reduction of 12.84%. Given the nature and structure of the non-profit clubs, completing CORI checks for non-profit clubs is challenging. For example, most non-profit clubs do not have full-time employees that run the agent location on a routine schedule. These owners are typically appointed members who serve as president, treasurer, etc. for a specific time-period as part of their club.

The MSLC has taken the additional step of procuring and initiating the implementation of a new licensing management system that will integrate with the ES system and automate the licensing function. This automation is expected to assure all future fourth-year background checks will be conducted in a timely manner.

Auditor’s Reply

Based on its response, MSLC is taking measures to address our concerns on this matter.

Date published: June 9, 2021

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