Indianapolis Audit Committee Meeting Summary – March 13, 2026
Indianapolis Audit Committee Meeting – March 13, 2026
The Audit Committee of the City of Indianapolis and Marion County met on March 13, 2026, at 9:00 a.m. in Room 221. The meeting was chaired by [Chair Reynolds] and included presentations from Director Wes Jones and Deputy Director Vivian Agnew of the Office of Audit and Performance (OAP). The agenda focused on administrative updates, the 2026 risk assessment, the 2026 audit plan, and status of ongoing audits. No public comments were received.
Key Administrative Updates
- Minutes from October 31, 2025: Approval was deferred because the minutes lacked answers to questions raised at the prior meeting. Director Jones will add the answers and recirculate the minutes for approval at the July 2026 meeting.
- Upcoming Meetings: The remaining 2026 meetings are scheduled for Friday, July 31, 2026, 9:00 a.m., and Friday, October 30, 2026, 9:00 a.m., both in Room 221.
- Economic Statements of Interest: Committee members were reminded that annual statements are due to the Office of Corporation Counsel between April 1 and May 1, 2026. Notifications will come from ethics@indy.gov, not from OAP.
Staffing and Professional Development
- New Hire: Malik Awadoyan joined as a senior auditor on March 2, 2026, bringing the audit team to full staffing (though one person is on maternity leave and another will depart in April).
- Conferences: OAP staff will attend the 2026 International Society for Performance Improvement Conference (virtual), Data Day 2026 at the State House, and the Association of Local Government Auditors Conference.
2026 Year-to-Date Audit Engagements
- Marion County Auditor’s Office (Benefit Leave): Ongoing; final testing expected to wrap up before the July meeting.
- Office of Public Health and Safety (OPHS): Exit conference completed; the report is in final review with eight findings (six classified as high risk, two moderate). Findings span operational controls and risk management. Director Jones noted progress in OPHS due to growth and changes during the audit period (2020–2025). The report will be released by the end of March 2026 and will be sent directly to committee members.
- Human Resources Division Audit: The draft report was delayed due to simultaneous major changes in HR. OAP will revisit this year to update findings based on recent improvements, providing a current picture of HR controls.
2025 Annual Report Summary
Deputy Director Agnew reviewed the audit committee’s 2025 activities:
- March 7, 2025: Forvis Mazars presented external audit planning.
- July 25, 2025: External audit results – clean opinions for both city and county financial statements.
- October 31, 2025: OAP activities, including enterprise risk/safety (presented by OFM) and cybersecurity updates (presented by Internal Services Agency).
- The full 2025 annual report will be shared for approval at the next meeting.
2026 Risk Assessment
Director Jones presented the 2026 risk assessment, which combines quantitative and qualitative analyses.
- Quantitative factors (9 metrics): Personnel expenses, materials/supplies, contractual services, capital expenses, employee tenure (<2 years and >10 years), federal grant expenditures, management tips/complaints, legal settlements, and workers’ compensation.
- Qualitative approach: Interviews with 10 city-county leaders across financial controls, risk, and operations. Key themes identified as high risk:
- Inconsistent data literacy, technical knowledge, and grant compliance expertise.
- Disaster recovery, email/system resilience, and data protection.
- Proper oversight and usage of procurement cards (P-cards).
- Staffing shortages and turnover.
- Recent state revenue changes impacting budget.
- The risk assessment will guide audit focus areas, shifting from agency-wide audits to targeted risk-based reviews across multiple agencies.
2026 Audit Plan
- Ongoing activities: External audit support (~400 hours from OAP), spontaneous cash counts, whistleblower tip line administration, internal controls training, and compliance with Institute of Internal Auditors standards.
- Planned projects:
- Third-Party Vendor Compliance: A review of how agencies hold vendors to contract terms, particularly in purchasing and grants. The focus is on agency-level compliance, not a direct audit of OFM.
- Grant Compliance: Similar cross-agency review of grant management practices.
- Special projects: Capacity reserved for ad hoc requests. Councilor Boots raised interest in reviewing the direct primary care (DPC) model for employee health, noting potential duplicative spending and low utilization. Director Jones agreed to explore this with colleagues.
- Whistleblower tip line: Online form receives mostly irrelevant submissions (e.g., local noise complaints). Less than 10% of tips relate to city-county business, and even fewer are actionable. OAP forwards relevant tips to appropriate agencies.
Key Outcomes
- Minutes deferred: The minutes from October 31, 2025, will be revised with answers to questions and approved at the July 31, 2026 meeting.
- OPHS audit report: To be released by end of March 2026; committee members will receive it directly.
- HR audit update: Will be re-performed in 2026 to reflect recent changes.
- Next meeting: July 31, 2026, 9:00 a.m., Room 221, with a focus on the external audit results from Forvis Mazars.
- Chair Reynolds reported: He met with the external auditors in advance of their work, confirming their plan is consistent with prior years.
Meeting Transcript
Thank you very much. I always like to have the audience introduce themselves because they're the ones that get the real work done. So thank you for all your efforts. That as you are speaking, please do turn on your mics so that the uh recording can pick up your voice. This meeting is recorded and then is available for public viewing. First order of business after introductions, then is the review of the minute meetings from our last meeting, October 31st, 2025. Any comments or corrections to the minutes. Mr. Chairman, I move that we adopt the minutes from the last meeting. Okay. I'm gonna I should have spoke first. Um if if I can, Counselor. Um I had a discussion with um Director Jones on this when I reviewed the minutes. Um I noticed at the end there was just kind of there was a list of questions, but no answers. And so I've asked um Director Jones to go back and add the answers to those questions for the minutes so that we have those. And so if it's okay with you, counselor, um I would like to hold that motion and then review it, and then next committee member we'll take or the next committee meeting we'd take action on the minutes if that's exactly. Sure. I am in my motion accordingly. Thank you very much. So um with no other corrections, if you just go back and add in the question or the answers to the questions, then we can take them minutes next next meeting. Sure, we'll do that and and recirculate them to the committee and then you know, approve in July. Very good, thank you. Um as a reminder to committee members, uh remaining meetings for 2026 is uh Friday, July 31st, 2006, uh 9 a.m. in room 221. And then our final meeting um for 2026 will be October 30th, 2026, 9 a.m. in room 221. As a further reminder the to the committee members uh at your annual economic statements of interest um are due and and to be returned to the Office of Corporation Council between April 1st and May 1st of 2026. I assume those will be emailed out to the committee members. Yes, they will be. Okay. And then it has to be turned in between April 1st and May 1st, right? Indeed, yeah, the deadline is May 1st. So a full month. Okay. We'll remind you in case you forget. Very good, thank you. Uh any other administrative updates from committee members prior to getting into the presentation by Director Jones. Very good. All right. The floor is yours, sir. Thank you. Um so we have a relatively light agenda today uh in terms of number of uh uh discussion items, but we have a number of updates to kind of provide you that have taken place over the past six months, I guess, since we last met. So we will hop into our presentation and I will uh kick it over to Deputy Director Vivian Agnew to kind of uh get us started. Good morning, folks. Uh so today as a brief overview, we're gonna speak through um just an administrative update. We'll talk about the work we've done uh since January um to today. Um I'll give you a brief kind of update on the 2025 annual report, specifically focusing on audit committee activities for that year. Um and then Wes will go into our 2026 risk assessment and annual plan. Um so to get us started on that administrative update. Uh we are very happy to have uh Malik Awadoyan joining our staff.
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