- Office of State Auditor Suzanne M. Bump
Media Contact for The Office of the State Auditor Releases Independent Review
Mike Wessler, Communications Director
Boston — Today the Office of the State Auditor released an independent review of its audit of the Department of Children and Families, which confirmed the validity of the audit findings.
The analysis, conducted by a certified public accounting firm, reviewed whether the audit was conducted according to generally accepted government auditing standards (GAGAS), a framework developed by the United States Government Accountability Office for conducting high quality audits with competence, integrity, objectivity, and independence. GAGAS provides guidelines auditors follow in conducting their work.
The independent review concluded that the audit work supported the findings in the audit report. It also found that the independence of medical and child welfare officials identified in appendix C of the audit, whose professional opinions were sought to confirm that sexual assault of a child constitutes a critical incident that should be reported by DCF to the Office of the Child Advocate (OCA), should have been documented. These expert opinions did not impact the findings of the audit and were contained in the “Other Matters” section of the audit. Nonetheless, the OSA has conducted a training to ensure that this documentation is completed in future audits.
The external review is available here.
About the Review
The analysis was conducted by Randall Davis, a co-managing partner of DavisKelly LLP, a Boston-based accounting firm with expertise in government compliance. OSA hired Davis to conduct this review after its discovery of an undisclosed potential conflict of interest on the part of one employee who contributed data analysis that was used in the planning of the audit and two data analytics contractors who did not contribute to the audit. A preliminary investigation concluded that these individuals violated office policies and the Office terminated their employment, referred the matter to the State Ethics Commission, and engaged DavisKelly to review the audit.
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