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Greetings!
To give us ideas for audits, please email
auditor@cityofberkeley.info
City Auditor's Annual Report for Fiscal Year 2010 (coming to Council May 31)
What's the common theme in our May 31 reports? Critical monitoring, training, and oversight left undone. As State and Federal deficits worsen, the City continues to cut oversight and administrative positions. It is an elementary principle of budgeting that oversight and administration are relatively fixed (stepped) costs. This workload does not decrease with the shrinking workforce.
Audit of Citywide Payment Card Acceptance: Is Cardholder Information Safe? (coming to Council May 31)
The audit demonstrates that staffing reductions due to budget cuts might be eroding important fiscal controls. The City has not issued guidance on protecting payment card information. Finance had also discontinued providing cash and payment card handling training and conducting surprise inspections and counts.
Council members asked why the City does not accept more online transactions. There are risks and costs: almost $423,000 in 2010 fees for $17 million in revenue. Parking meter pay card fees can be as high as 15-20% of revenue. More significantly, acceptance of payment cards at parking meters likely reduces parking fine revenue. From FY2007 through FY2010, revenue from parking-meter fees increased almost $1 million, while revenue from parking fines decreased by almost $2.6 million.
More Reports to Council:
City Fuel Operations Need Improvement
(May 3, 2011)
About 13% of 2010 fuel purchases was unaccounted for (not billed to users), apparently due to systems failures that were not detected. The City needs to check deliveries and reconcile fuel purchases, inventory, and usage.
Police Property and Evidence Room: Further Improvements (March 29, 2011)
Recommends improvements in security, oversight, policies and procedures, inventory, and safeguarding employee health.
Property and Evidence Room POST Study: Follow-up Audit (January 18, 2011)
A follow-up audit on the 2006 California Commission on Police Officer Standards and Training (POST) management study.
Business License Tax Audit Program Report: Fiscal Year 2010 (January 18, 2011)
A total of $122,899 was collected from Business License Tax audits in Fiscal Year 2010.
Employee Benefits: Tough Decisions Ahead (November 16, 2010)
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