LIHU‘E — Responding to Kaua‘i County Council Chair Jay Furfaro’s concerns during the April 12 budget review presentation, the County Auditor’s Office has resubmitted its budget for Fiscal Year 2012. The relatively new department, which voters created via charter amendment,
LIHU‘E — Responding to Kaua‘i County Council Chair Jay Furfaro’s concerns during the April 12 budget review presentation, the County Auditor’s Office has resubmitted its budget for Fiscal Year 2012.
The relatively new department, which voters created via charter amendment, works to provide independent evaluations and analyses of county operations and “to be a catalyst for improving county government,” County Auditor Ernie Pasion says in his budget presentation.
The office’s proposed budget for FY12, which starts July 1, is $1.36 million. This represents a $189,544 decrease from the current fiscal year’s adjusted budget.
Pasion states in his presentation that one of the most notable challenges the office faced in its first full year of operations was encountering “obstacles in procuring the work of outside experts to assist in the conduct of several audits.”
Some of the work the office needs to do to complete an audit requires expertise in particular areas, such as engineering or actuarial sciences. As such, the office needs to hire specialists, as its budget allows.
“However, when we sought to procure the use of such specialists, our procurement efforts were often hindered or obstructed by numerous externally-imposed delays or influences,” Pasion states in his presentation, without naming names.
“Government auditing standards also provide that audit organizations must be free from external impairments to independence,” Pasion states. “Such impairments occur when auditors are deterred from acting objectively and exercising professional skepticism by pressures from management and employees of the audited entity or oversight organization.”
Pasion cites examples of conditions in which the auditors may not have complete freedom to make independent and objective judgments that could adversely affect their audit work. He says that while the county auditor appreciates that funding for the specialists was approved, the challenges encountered in using this money to procure their services “might be considered an external interference with the auditor’s work.”
In FY11, the office estimates $1.3 million in potential savings to the county based on its recommendations in three audits. Those include an energy audit, completed April 29; a fuel audit and a capital project implementation audit, for which draft reports are expected to be completed in June.
The office is also on track to complete, or has already finished, several “work plan items” that include: pre-audit assessment of the feasibility of consolidating personnel functions (completed January 2011); pre-audit assessment of the county furlough program (completed January 2011 and converted to a full audit); annual financial statement audit by independent CPA firm (completed December 2010); procurement for annual financial statement audit services by a CPA firm for the next three to four years (contract award expected May 2011); report to citizens (released this week; view the full report attached to this story online at www.thegardenisland.com).
For FY12, the office expects to complete another three to five performance audits, including:
— An audit of the county’s budget practices and budget monitoring, which will include a review of the ways in which the county proposes and sets budgets and a comparison of county budget “best practices” nationally.
— Audits of the county’s programs to manage employee costs, including a partial hiring freeze and furloughs. Regarding the furlough program audit, the office plans to “independently calculate the extent to which savings were achieved and the financial impacts of this program on the county.”
— A review and assessment of issues regarding enforcement of planning permit conditions. This pre-audit assessment is to study how the conditions imposed by the Planning Commission and Department as prerequisites to approvals are monitored and enforced.
Additional pre-audit assessments planned for next fiscal year include overtime incurred with the Public Works Department and Kaua‘i Police Department; hazardous work at Kekaha Landfill; sick leave usage and abuse.
Visit www.kauai.gov for more information.
