Welcome to today's business session.

Our first item is approval of minutes for business session of June 14, 2022.

Is there a motion?

So moved.

Then moved and seconded.

All in favor indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed.

The motion passes.

Our first item today, I believe, is the city auditor.

Annual update and audit scope statements.

Brother auditor.

Good afternoon, Mayor Lucas, members of City Council, Doug Jones, City Auditor's Office.

We normally report on the performance of city department's programs and activities, but today I'm gonna report on our performance of the last fiscal year.

In June, we sent our annual report for fiscal year 2022 to the mayor and city council and published it on our website.

So in front of you today, you should have copies of the annual report as well as today's presentation.

The city auditors' authority and duties as an independent audit function are and mandate to audit city government are in the city charter, and one of those is to provide information to the city council as part of the duties.

The city auditors appointed by reports to the mayor and city council.

The city auditor is independent of the city manager.

And in brief, the city auditors' duties outlined in the charter are to provide information to the council, conduct investigations into the work of city government, conduct other investigations directed by council, and establish standards for conducting the work.

The city charter grants the city auditor complete access to the books, records, and employees of city government.

Additionally, state statutes authorize the city auditor to audit the Kansas City Missouri Police Department.

City Auditors Office mission is based on our charter mandate and government auditing standards.

We accomplish our mission through performance audits conducted in accordance with the standards and our core values of accountability, transparency, integrity, and professionalism that guide our work as government auditors.

Our audits provide essential public accountability and transparency over public programs and activities.

Other benefits include reduced or avoided costs, increased revenues, improved city services to residents and employees, information to facilitate decision making, and improve safeguards over public monies and assets.

We met our goal of issuing six performance audits in fiscal year 2022 that strengthen city government's public accountability and transparency and made recommendations to improve city operations.

Last year we assessed whether the city receives all rent payments due for leased properties, whether city purchasing cards were used as intended, police officers' use of body worn cameras, and that audit was directed by council, how long it takes to respond to illegal dumping service requests and efforts to engage the community to reduce illegal dumping, and that was based on public audit suggestions, whether warranty inspections and previous audit recommendations related to the Go KC sidewalk program were implemented, and whether boards and commission members file conflict of interest forms as required by city code.

These audits took an average of 1,000 to 557 hours to complete, a reduction from 1,951 hours in fiscal year 2021.

A very brief summary of each audit is on page five of the annual report, and the online report contains links to the audits.

In addition to the audits, we issued one council memo in response to a question from Councilmember Barnes as well as four administrative reports last year to inform the mayor, city council, and the public about our activities and performance.

Our audits can have potential direct financial impacts on city government through recommendations and information to reduce, avoid, or recover costs or increase revenues.

The potential direct financial impacts of audits we issued in fiscal year 2022 is about $822,000.

Our audits can also have potential indirect financial impacts by suggesting ways the city could improve the delivery of services to the public and employees and ensure appropriate controls are in place to manage or protect public monies or assets.

Last year we made recommendations and provided information to improve how nearly 45.4 million dollars in public monies and assets are used or managed.

Our expenditures for last fiscal year were about 1.16 million dollars.

Overall, for every one dollar we spent, our audit work identified about 40 dollars in potential direct and indirect financial impacts.

Auditing alone does not directly produce benefits.

The benefits come from implementing audit recommendations, which cannot be effective without management support.

To measure the effectiveness of recommendations we make, our goal is to achieve management approval or agreement with 90% of our audit recommendations.

Last year we made 48 recommendations.

Management agreed with 89% of those.

We also have a goal for 75% of our audit recommendations to be implemented within two years of when an audit is released.

By fiscal year 2022, management had reported implementing about 69% of our fiscal year 2020 audit recommendations according to audit report tracking system reports they submitted.

Every three years, the city auditor's office is audited, and this audit is called a peer review.

As government auditors, we followed the government auditing standards, and to comply with these standards, we must obtain a peer review conducted by independent reviewers once every three years.

We passed our most recent required peer review, receiving the highest possible rating.

The peer review team's opinion was that our internal quality control system was designed and operating effectively to provide reasonable assurance of compliance with government auditing standards.

This was our tenth peer review since 1991, and our next peer review will be in fall 2024.

The peer review report and my response are included in the annual report, and they are also available on our website.

Communicating the results of our work is part of our mission and promotes transparency about what we do and the work of city government.

We do this by sending emails to the mayor council with links to our newly published audits, monthly status reports, and other work, publishing our audits and other work products on our website, issuing meeting releases related to our work, publicly presenting the results of our audits to the mayor and city council as well as city boards and commissions, talking to residents at the city's community engagement university or council member constituent meetings about the work of the city auditor's office, asking the public for their audit suggestions, which they can submit through our website or Twitter, using our Twitter account to help keep the public informed about our upcoming presentations, audit results, where to find our reports online, and how to send us audit suggestions, as well as responding to any questions they may have about our work.

The city auditor's office staff are highly qualified, and all professional audit staff have master's degrees in fields such as business, health or public administration, accounting, economics, and psychology.

Four audit staff have one or more of the professional certifications shown on this slide.

Overall, staff hold eight professional certifications.

As an office, we have 118 years of audit experience, almost all of it auditing Kansas City government.

Maintaining and improving our professional competency and skills is not only an area of emphasis for our office, the government auditing standards require auditors to complete at least 80 hours of continuing professional education every two years.

All audit staff met the continuing professional education requirement.

We are active in and contribute to our profession as the office and individual staff members are involved in a number of professional associations.