By JP Crumrine
Correspondent
At the Riverside County Board of Supervisors’ Nov. 7 meeting, Auditor-Controller Ben J. Benoit unveiled the fiscal year (FY) 2023-24 audit plan.
“Today’s audit plan is a marked departure from our previous plans,” Benoit told the board at the beginning of his brief presentation.
“This one was created by using a countywide risk assessment performed by our department,” he explained. His staff went to many critical parts of the county. They asked them, “What risks did they see in their department and in others?”
The team listened to board meetings and public comments, reviewed civil grand jury reports and evaluated their prior reports, he added. “… Their input was critical, and it helped us identify the risk areas that we need to focus on,” Benoit said in his news release.
The plan constitutes the schedule of audits and other direct audit activities, which are designed to meet the objective of providing timely and comprehensive audit coverage.
The countywide risk assessment was used to set the 2023-24 priorities and, the associated allocation of audit resources for the next two fiscal years. This assessment helped identify risks associated with general county operations, how these risks impact the achievement of organizational objectives, and how respective risks are mitigated, according to the auditor’s release.
The FY 2023-24 plan contains a total of 62 audit projects. There will be 22 mandated audit projects, such as Child Support Services, District Attorney, Planning and 19 others; and 35 follow-up audit projects, such as Code Enforcement, Planning, two about Animal Services and another 31 follow-up audits. Also, four quarterly verifications of assets county treasury holds, and one procurement card monitoring report are planned for FY 2023-24.
During the preparation of next year’s plan, the assessment team identified issues and processes to be reviewed and explored more thoroughly during the conduct of the next set of audits. The team specifically identified the following risk themes:
• Accounting practices and compliance with Standard Practice Manuals published by the Auditor-Controller’s Office
• Riverside County board policy and county ordinance compliance
• Payroll and Human Resources policies compliance and practices
• Contract and vendor management
• Asset and equipment management
• Grant management and compliance
• Compliance with laws and regulations — specific laws and regulations impacting respective county departments’ operations.
• Service delivery by county departments • Network security and application controls; this also includes physical security of restricted areas.
In the 2022-23 FY, 54 audits were completed, of which 23 were mandated and 27 were follow-up.
Also, the auditor-controller’s report mentioned that new forms of monitoring reports would be used this year. Some of these reports will be provided through a board agenda item and others, depending on the sensitivity, will be provided directly to board members and county management.
Also, some changes were initiated in January after Benoit took office following his election as auditor- controller in the November 2022 election.
The Report to the Board stated, “This adjustment was made to give time for the new administration to establish a new tone in communication with all county departments. As a result of the adjustment, the audit project and monitoring reports removed from the audit plan was a follow-up audit of the Sheriff Department, the Overtime Monitoring Report, and the procurement card monitoring report.”
It continued, “The follow-up of the Sheriff Department will be conducted in Fiscal Year 2023/24, the Overtime Monitoring Report will no longer be issued or be part of the audit plan, and the procurement card monitoring report is part of the Fiscal Year 2023/24 audit plan.”
