State & Local Reports

As 2020 began, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) was already facing challenges in balancing its budget, along with missed capital commitment goals, capital funding risks and escalating debt service costs. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated these troubling trends. The MTA was able to balance its 2020 and 2021 budgets with federal emergency relief and funds that had been earmarked for capital purposes. The authority now faces out-year gaps it intends to close with additional federal aid and borrowed funds, and it must advance a capital program that has barely started.

The purpose of this audit was to determine whether the Department of Revenue (Department) awarded the Extra Credit Grant to eligible individuals in compliance with North Carolina Session Law 2020-4 Sections 4.12.(a)–(d). 1 If not in compliance, identify the causes and the effect of noncompliance. Some low-income families did not receive Extra Credit Grant Program payments from the State. These families did not receive the payments because of the additional steps the Department needed to take in order to award payments to low-income families in a short timeframe

We found that the State has met or exceeded targets for testing individuals for COVID‑19, but contact tracing throughout the State has lagged behind case surges that have far exceeded Public Health’s initial planning

This report provides the results of our evaluation of select Unemployment Insurance programs administered by the Louisiana Workforce Commission (LWC). The purpose of this evaluation was to identify potentially improper payments LWC made to individuals who appear to have been ineligible for unemployment benefits based on their income

In April 2019, the City of Chicago Office of Inspector General (OIG) published a report on the Chicago Police Department’s (CPD) so-called “gang database.” OIG reported that CPD captured, reported, and visualized gang data and gang affiliation designations in at least 18 different forms, records, and systems of records. OIG found that CPD’s Gang Arrest Cards, one of the Department’s largest repositories of gang information, evidenced wide-reaching data quality concerns. OIG also found in 2019 that CPD had no mechanism for informing individuals that they had been designated as a gang member; did not have processes for individuals to contest or appeal gang designations; did not have processes to regularly review or purge outdated or faulty designations; and had no internal mechanism to amend inaccurate gang information. This follow-up report provides an update on the status of CPD’s collection and maintenance of gang data, as well as CPD’s progress on the commitments formally made in response to OIG’s April 2019 recommendations. Specifically, the objectives of this report were to determine the current status of CPD’s planned gang intelligence database, now known in CPD’s draft General Order G10-01-03 as the “Criminal Enterprise Information System” (CEIS); to assess CPD’s progress toward fully articulating the strategic purpose and value of collecting and storing information on individuals presumed to be involved in gangs; to evaluate the extent of CPD’s community engagement in planning the launch of the CEIS and the extent of CPD’s responsiveness to community concerns.OIG reached three new findings herein: CPD has made minimal progress toward an operational CEIS; CPD has not clearly and specifically articulated the strategic value of its proposed system for collecting gang affiliation information; and CPD has taken some measures to adopt community feedback on its gang data collection, but for eight months, it offered a public-facing description of the CEIS which may have been misleading with respect to a key policy concern.

In this performance audit, we examined certain aspects of CHE’s administration of premium overtime for its Nursing Department, including overtime authorization, payment, and documentation for the period July 1, 2017 through June 30, 2019.

This report presents the results of our internal controls and compliance audit of the Department of Human Services Behavioral Health Division for the period July 2017 through March 2020. The objectives of this audit were to determine if the Department of Human Services had adequate internal controls and complied with certain legal requirements and state policies and procedures related to oversight of grant agreements and payments to grantees.

Auditor Faber’s Office issued a qualified opinion on the Unemployment Compensation Fund, and Business-Type Activities opinion units in the State of Ohio’s financial statements due to internal control weaknesses related to recipient eligibility and claims processing of unemployment benefits. A qualified opinion indicates the auditors could not be assured the financials for these opinion units are fairly presented, in all material respects, based on the issues identified. This is a significant qualification

What Was Performed? An Agreed Upon Procedure of the Office of the State Treasurer Bank Reconciliations for Quarter Ended December 31, 2019, was performed. The Office of the State Treasurer’s bank reconciliations team (Reconciliations and Transaction Management) reconciles the collections and disbursements recorded with the banks with what is recorded in Delaware’s accounting system (First State Financials). The bank reconciliations team ensures the total amounts are accurate in both systems.Additionally, the team haphazardly1 selected a sample of wire transfers to ensure they matched up to the bank statements and occurred within one business day.What Was Found? All tested samples reconciled correctly.Why This Engagement? This engagement was performed in accordance with 29 Del. C. §2906(b). The State Auditor reviewed the bank reconciliation produced by the Office of the State Treasurer to ensure the reconciliations are accurately stated.The Agreed Upon Procedures of the Office of the State Treasurer Bank Reconciliations for Quarter Ended December 31, 2019 can be found on our website.1 Haphazard sampling is a sampling method in which the auditor does not intend to employ a systematic approach to selecting a sample.