Add Audit Committee Charter Electronic Signature with airSlate SignNow

Add Audit Committee Charter electronic signature

okay this time I'd like to call the regularly scheduled audit committee meeting of the Plaquemines Parish Council to order at 9:30 a.m. on may 2 9 20 19 and a machine is open for roll call I let the record reflect that all members of President mr. Duke here representing the audit department will have guests in the audience from the Recreation Department the directors - eppley and we also have mr. Corey our bro here who's making a special request of the committee today so with that we'd like to move forward would you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance thank you all for coming this morning we'll move right on to new business a a discussion following discussion of the follow up internal audit of the civil service okay what we're gonna do this morning what I'd like to do for the committee is review the civil service department and follow up on it that was done on April 13th 2018 we'll go over a little bit of the background in accordance with the Plaquemines Parish government section code charter section 7.08 audit committee and the internal audit department charter the internal auditor has performed a follow-up audit on the recommendations made and the internal audit report dated April 13th 2018 the objective scope and methodology internal audits standard 2500 point a 1 States the chief internal audit executive must establish a follow-up process to monitor and ensure that management action concerning the recommendations of the auditor have been effectively implemented our that senior management has accepted the risk of not taking the recommendations the objective was to determine the status of the auditors recommendations as of April 13th 2018 the scope included the Civil Service Department internal audit report as of the same date my methodology was the internal auditor review the internal auditors report recommendations and the status of each recommendation as of April 13 2018 with the director of civil service to determine compliance with audits standard 2,500 point a 1 this audit was conducted in accordance with the internal auditors standards for professional practice of internal auditing at the Redbook let us now go to page 4 of the report this is my conclusion and a summary of my recommendations in my opinion the recommendations listed below will improve internal controls and reduce the risk of a negative nth from happening the summary of the auditors recommendations are as follows employee hiring process during the interviews candidates should be tested to help ensure that they have the necessary experience to fulfill the duties and responsibilities as stated in their job description status management agrees number two rule eight working tests the appointing authority and the employee supervisor should work together and closely monitor probationary employees since the supervisor works with the employee on a daily basis the appointing authority should make every effort to support the supervisors evaluation unless insufficient documentation otherwise if it's determined by the appointing Authority and the supervisor the probationary employee is not doing his job Civil Service rule eight working test section 1.1 should be implemented in a timely manner in addition it appears that training on employee evaluations would be helpful to management status a meeting to discuss training has occurred between the Civil Service Human Resources finance and administration budget approval by the parish council may be needed to consider this mr. Duke other what I'm gathering out of these first couple of comments or that the Civil Service Department is very cooperative and but I'm reading in this and they're interested in training or having the supervisors train to be able to evaluate employees correctly in a better fashion yes correctly in a better fashion they think they need more training when I was doing this audit that was one of the things that we discussed is that they the director and I agreed that it doesn't appear that everyone understands the evaluation process and to me that's been a long-standing problem in the civil service system in Plaquemines Parish that evaluations or not properly done in many cases and the reason I cite that is because some time ago we had some statistics to show that out of the 600 employees we might have had one or two poor evaluations that's correct my sample showed that that was a concern and training is needed and it also says it needs a budget to do that and you know exactly it's gonna cost some money just like everything thank you okay number three the funding of positions and layoffs better communication is needed between the preparer parish president council civil service director and the Civil Service Commission to resolve any misunderstandings and any differences in the interpretation so the Civil Service Commission rules every effort should be made to avoid spending taxpayers funds on attorney fees and court cases status of the recommendation communication has improved with the new administration the case with employee a is still in litigation policy policies and procedures a civil service department policies and procedures manuals should be implemented these procedures can help future employees understand the civil service operations and to help reduce the risk that civil service would operate in an inefficient and ineffective manner from employees that may not have the necessary experience and knowledge to operate the civil service department on a daily basis without policy guidance status of recommendation procedure manual is deemed necessary and will be a priority when time permits number five civil service directors supervision if there are any differences with how the civil service director is being supervised and the operations of the civil service department these differences should be discussed and resolved independently with the Civil Service Commission management agreed and when we speak of management was speaking of the civil service department director that's correct okay and it seems to be that there are very agreeable yeah it was a good audit I thought we got some controls in place that I think like I said in the beginning will mitigate risk number six time sheets and time cards civil service department is tracking and monitoring employee time and an efficient effective manner there was no standard no recommendation was in play there so there's no snow status to take a look at they're doing a good job with that internal auditors job description I think this is a good one this job description should require the chief internal auditors to have a working knowledge of the internal audit environment at least five to eight years status as previous civil service director changes were made as approved by appointing authority Council Burt councilmember Burton any other changes that suggested they need appointing authority approval donation of sick leave or update the civil service rule on donations to ensure that employee donations are notarized review the cost benefit to determine if adding this control is beneficial a PBG civil service department did some research on this and their opinion is that the cost is not the cost would be more than a benefit of putting this control in place sick leave continued in my opinion the civil service rule for donation needs clarification and updating the intent of the employee donating sick or annual leave to an employee was not for that employee to make a profit it appears that access lead was caused in part by requiring the employee to exhaust all annual and sick leave before the employee donated leave was approved and started ensure that an employee in was sickly that has been exhausted before approving this there are numerous provisions in the Civil Code setting forth requirements for a valid donation however to minimize attorney fees and councilmembers time it seems the following two requirements could be determined before going forward Civil Code article 15 19 which prohibits donations which are contrary to law or morals Civil Code article 15 36 which requires a donation of a corporal to be notarized in front of two witnesses status donation of sick leave will be processed on a bi-weekly basis at which time only the amount needed to make eighty hours will be processed this process would keep the employee whole and avoid any overages of time that would occur because of unforeseen circumstances so just take a minute on that in the past we've had conflicting application of donations of sick leave speaking to the mic mr. do what was happening was the annual and sick leave was not being exhausted just like I said before they were donating sick leave or annually so what would happen sometimes they didn't have on the books they would have say 80 hours of sick leave and annual leave and they would be donated another a 30 or 40 hours and in order but that's not the way it's supposed to work he's supposed to have 2-0 and they donated so now I believe we've had some cases where some people were were denied to be even against that it happened in several occasions and quite I thought it was quite under fair but they have agreed to stick to the policy and move they're gonna they're not going to donate and last the employees have exhausted their time okay thank you believe it does yes yeah there's a there you know there's there's a lot of and I I thought to there was one instance I thought like for maternity leave you know you get a whole lot of time for maternity leave and at one instance and this is what it kind of brought this up that individual not only had maternity but they also donate 150 hours of donate isley to that person so I thought that was odd private world I'll work you get you can keep up to 200 hours of sick leave right yeah well I think in my opinion like I said you have supposed to profit from this role and you should if you need it you don't have anything left and I think the donation is valid otherwise it's not number 10 custom custody of employee records management should authorize the civil service department and our Human Resources to have custody of the employee records the parish president is a CEO of Plaquemines Parish and should determine who has custody of these records they agree though so this has been an issue for some time now whether or not the past presidents office should have the records and they're agreeing now that the past president should be custodian of the records and has the authority yes sir and so they willing to work with us on on that that's what it seemed yep thank you staffing requirements in accordance with Louisiana State Constitution section under appropriations be the civil service department should be adequately staffed status meetings have been held with parish council members to propose an introduction of the members in to be granted a resolution which would fund a clerical position in that department number 12 the assistant auditors job description the assistant auditors job description should be revised to require at least two to four years of internal audit experience in that environment not CPA work not any other kind of work and the internal auditing environment and at least have a certified internal auditor certification agreed and so how do we move forward to corrupt to improve that that requirement yeah I think it has to go before the council to change the job description okay we haven't annoyance prepared or whatever the legislation prepared to request that civil service do that and let the committee review that ledge legislation and make a recommendation to the council yes sir okay we'll look forward to that coming down in a future yes sir that concludes my follow-up audit there do we have any further questions on the follow-up audit it seems to me that the the working relationship between the civil service department and obviously it's stated in the audit of the administration is getting better and I would hope that they continue to have that positive attitude to be able to fill positions avatars positions in a timely manner those that are funded in that way we can you know at least provide the services that we can fund although we don't have enough funding to provide everything we need but what we do have we should be able to fill those positions so yes sir I think that's a good positive step anything else anyone has on this none all right well thank you for that we'll move to the next item to be discussion of audit discussion of auditing the Parks Recreation Department is requested by councilmembers black and opera okay as you know we've had request and I distributed this request one was on the front page of The Gazette that was requested us to audit and then mr. Oberoi sent an email out on May the 7th at 524 p.m. asking that the recreation audit come up I think we had discussion at the last meeting that we were willing to consider adding this to our list you have before you today a list of audits and our annual plan and scheduled we also have a resolution before us to discuss to add the Parks and Recreation Department to the schedule itself now I know mr. Oberoi was in the audience if you would like to make some comments as to why you believe the risk assessment is valued to be moved up ahead of the annual plan would be glad to hear your comments yes sir based on my email after our Finance Committee meeting our finance meeting we had gone through all the departments with budget shortfalls was which it was also on my request not only the recreation department but going through all the departments for budget shortfalls just having go through with fine-tooth comb looking for some options there was some mentions of going up on fees for different activities and things so before we can do that as council members I feel it's necessary to get a better picture of exactly what's going on in the Recreation Department so do you I mean you know your request is that should move the Recreation Department up on a priority list so well I guess what we're looking for mr. Duke perhaps you can weigh in on this is there a higher risk in that department they don't know if we take a look let's take a look at the the schedule the risk assessment that we have now and let me let me say this I wanted to bring this to the committee I do think that we need to where I'm going to be doing a risk assessment towards the end of this year and I think that we need to try to read here to my judgment on the audits and the judgment of management and the council when I do my risk assessment and we should adhere to those particular audits for the most part for that year this is the way I've always done it before however the way I've done it before is that we've left space for two or three special request audits from management is something if a big risk comes up there's something really hot the data comes up we throw it in there so that being said I would request that the committee consider that when we do our risk assessment at the end of the year my resident as well as some of these were special requests in fact a number of these were special request examinations and such as a water department and it turned out that that was a good risk it was a high risk and we got a lot of controls in place and I think there was a lot of good work done with that grants which is number two grants is always high risk for things going wrong so I think that was a good suggestion by the committee that was a special request on it as well and so that's what I'm working on right now contracts is always a high risk area and that's part of my risk assessment I did in 2018 and 19 time keeping it over time high risk for this whole area you've got to consider that property and leases we uh you know I've asked questions about that I'm not really certain if Plaquemine parish really knows what they have at this time making that a very high risk purchasing is are we disbursements is always a high risk have to take a look at that boat harbours people are telling me that that's a high risk as well and my my examination and my judgement when we went over these I I had a meeting with several people administration other department heads one department head didn't show up but most of the most of the directors I had a meeting with when I first got here and we devised all this and everybody agreed to it that these were areas that they wanted me to look at and I agreed to because I looked at the policies the policies or the controls and I thought these were good choices boat harbours ambulances firefighting especially with the volunteer fire department you've got a look at that Community Action Agency they have grants so we have to look at that as well now that being said I I appreciate the idea that you know they you know the council member thinks is a risk with the recreation apartment that's a good a good good thing to to consider and I hope the committee considers it but I don't think at this time we should put the recreation apartment way above all these others that we need to try to do that's just my opinion I think that the main risk and I've done examinations on the Recreation Department in the past when I was working for the UH for Jefferson Parish inspector general's office and the main area that we discovered when we looked at recreation was that the booster clubs did not have a whole lot of controls in place and they dealt with cash other than that there was not enough to to war at the time spent on the recreation department so so Gustavo do you have some insight or knowledge of expanded risk that we should be moving this up first I have two questions one being when was the last time our Recreation Department was audited and also the these audits you know how many times have these been done within the last year are these multiple years and I'm sorry three questions the last one is the the audits the grants Department isn't that audited multiple times by state agencies and other outside agencies as well but let me address you first of all before this audit committee came into being and hired mr. Duke there were no audits done for many years the previous audit committee was dysfunctional to say the least the internal auditor did not come to work there was litigation involved to where the internal auditor at the time did not show up for work for almost a year and the lawsuit wound up paying her back she came back to work the new audit committee took over held her accountable and after six months she resigned so to look in the rearview mirror about how many audits were done it's very simple zero you'd have to go back many many years to see about any audits done - when mr. people's will see him as the internal auditor and what his audits were they weren't really audits there were a verification of five hundred and over expenditures and there was nothing like what we are doing today we have recreated this audit committee to move forward so to distinguish for your second question is that audits are done by external audits as per the state law under our Charter we have a special section where we have our own internal auditor which is a completely different function stay on that yes and so that function is being administered by this committee and mr. Duke under the guise of the authority of the Charter and so if there is overlap there will be overlap but one will be an external audit won't be internal audit now I'm tending to agree with you on the recreation issue since the depth of the rocks now I'm thankful for you to bring that forward so we can perhaps find out what happened to those rocks now depending on what happens in the meeting this afternoon then I would no matter as to where my position would be whether we should move this on it up or not because Parks recreations and I would include that and as you know at the last meeting we had discussion one of the council members brought forward the issue of rocks being disappearing so to speak that's parks and recreations right on point to what you're saying so I mean unless you have some other information well I would just like to clarify I'm not this is not a witch hunt for me this is it was recommended and with the discussion to possibly going up on the fees for our citizens to have to pay for their children to do recreation that spurred all this conversation I cannot support anything on that matter without having an understanding and a better idea of what's going on within the Recreation Department from as far as fees fair across the board expenditures they it again which would the Audit Committee ultimately look for in their council member when I would suggest it would be very helpful if you could into the mic if you could take a look at the risk areas of the Recreation Department and bring those risks forward to this committee and they still got risks we can evaluate whether that risk is a red flag or a higher risk than the audits that we have currently on the board but you need to you know just just to be able to say that well we want to take a look because these expenditures are either high or low that that's not a risk that's just an operational financial deal that was probably audited by the external auditors where you could go to mr. surpass and ask him about it and probably get your answer from him rather than spending a whole lot of man-hours with the internal audit department looking at now for instance what mr. Russo brought up with the rocks I mean that could be construed as theft and that is a high risk and so if we're going to base this on it on something of that nature then I would have to say yeah we should be eight we should put this on there and start looking for theft other than that what you're saying is just financial and and I guess I let me just follow up on what you what you're basing your request on you've received this same sheet in that financial meeting that you had all right and you chose to pick the recreation and I guess their question is because we're asking you all of these others just as the five mill property tax was brought up in a subject to be able to raise fees well raising taxes are just equally as important as raising fees which all of these other departments will be subsidized by the general fund relief from the property taxes so so that's what I guess we're really asking is if there's a doesn't see a risk there then we need to know about it so we can move forward with that but drainage Department you know you got the list you're running a deficit deficits in all of these categories right but record it from my understanding recreation as one that had never been audited or many many years versus some of the others it was the one we discussed in the meeting it was the one that was already requested by councilmember black it's the one that's near and dear to my heart that's why I'm here today I'm not again we all know some other issues going on that we would like to have looked at I'm not going on record right now to say what those are but it's just a request that's all thank you all right but we want to honor a legitimate request and that's what we're trying to get what you you've had a no I'm all for putting it on the list but I'm not for moving it up the list because if I go just looking at the list boat hull bus well you heard what I said today our ordinances say if you're back in rent you're supposed to be out the Halbach what a lady who does the billing for the boat harvest told me there's one in Venice Taz owes $10,000 and they still in the boat oh so there's an ordinance no shrimp Doc's supposed to dock at those shrimp docks they supposed to get their own slip they only could go there for so many hours in a day and move they all there and it go and and you identify those what I'm asking for is a professional to identify some issues or areas that we could improve the record recreation department so I feel there's a little bit of a difference we know with those issues all we just need to tell us what you recreation is I know it needs to be done things there's money involved and all that but I got a list of things where the administration should could follow it's already in our rules and agree and so we have a resolution to edit our list today it's not a problem and we don't mind adding to the list but when your request came to move it up then we're looking for justification to do that and so at this time I'd like to offer the following resolution and it's a resolution to add the audit of the Parks and Recreation Department to the 2018-2019 schedule of audit priorities and otherwise provide with respect there to it I think you have a copy of that and I like to offer next for a second second second one mr. conovan discussion is open on adding the audit to the list and it would be added at the bottom of the list just as we add other things and so any comments mr. Newbery yeah this is the first time I've seen this proposed internal audit lists thank you all up agreeing to add it to the list I think it's also priority recreation it needs to be brought up because it involves our whole community this is why our community is based on parks and recreations and as we know it's a big deficit sorry madam and I think we can come bring this back to the table next month and I think we need to renegotiate this list because mr. Coggan ditch and I wasn't here when this was this resolution was passed last year so maybe we need to sit down and talk about what are our priorities if this list is correct right and while you were out let me reiterate what we discussed and what we were trying to do is we were trying to determine what the risk factors were on all of these and mr. Duke gave a very distinct reasoning why these are on a list but because of the theft of the rocks or the disappearance of the rocks then we give credit to these two councilman's requests to look into that theft or that disappearance of the rocks so I thank them for bringing this forward but if it's answered today at the council meeting about where those rocks went then we're looking for something to be able to have a hook on to make it more important than these other items of timekeeping purchasing property boat harbours ambulances everything is important and I understand that the rocks are is a big issue and I agree with you there but when you lose in over a million dollars in recreation that's also very important it's important to the people it's not the fact is it's not the fact what's important to us because I see your agenda on that it's what's important to the people and I think that people would want to see the Recreation Department get audited so we know how to assess what's best whether we're gonna raise fees whether we're not gonna raise fees that's just my opinion and I agree with that opinion and that thought but I'm um my thought process is not that narrow it's broader because we're looking at exactly all of the losses we lost a million dollars of recreation we lost three million dollars in buildings we lost a million four in drainage roads and bridges a million four so it's just one of a list now I understand you know people that want a single shot at the Recreation Department and I'm trying to get to the bottom of what you're really looking for because if you're looking for revamping a reorganization we have mr. Eppley in the audience who we can call on and see if he has any ideas but to actually get into the audit of it we we value audits based on risk and that's why mr. Duke gave the presentation that he gave and I'm not opposed to auditing the recreation parks and recreation grounds and all of that but there's something driving this effort for Recreation Department and I'm trying to get to the reason and so I can buy in and so just eppley do you have anything to add to this because we definitely have worked with you on the Water Works Department audit we're willing to work with you on the Recreation Department audit so I'm trying to find out in my mind why I would want to vote to bump the other audits that are already on an annual list such as I just mentioned such as time keeping it over time you know we can look at time keeping it over time we can start with the councilmembers and come right on down about timekeeping and overtime and who shows up for work and who doesn't and when they come in when they go we can we can do that we can take purchasing as he said we can look at purchasing and we can see if the contracts and the purchasing is right all of these things are important but mr. Eppley I don't have anything to add as far as a recreation department they're in it you know in charge of parks we also know that they're in charge of the day vanpool we know we have issues at the Dayman pool that have to be resolved I'm working on those issues right now as far as the fees and things that the Recreation Department collects it doesn't amount to a whole lot of money because it's it's just fees collected from kids to baseball registrations and football registrations so no I don't have anything to add to it sir well let me ask you this do you think that it's a high risk area for us to move ahead of the other things that I just mentioned no sir I don't okay and you know if if you do find something that is a high risk and we've asked you that you report it to us so we can make that evaluation and we can take the proper steps to move it up absolutely what thank you for your cooperation welcome because we don't need an audit to go up on fees like it's quick for everybody to go to different parishes say all Jefferson charges this all these charges that do it for recreation and and if we need to get away from its advanced pool my pool for itself is pool when I got the money from up Buras is pool they said all we got money for your pool it's not my pool is Plaquemines parishes pool so it shouldn't be separated I'm working to help everybody on this board do whatever they need in that districts and I don't consider it my poo is Plaquemines parishes pool so we have a resolution on the table to add the Parks and Recreation Department to the schedule of auditing is there any further comment on the resolution hearing none the machine is open and the resolution was adopted three to zero so thank you for your input mr. our borough with added your request to the list and we'll look forward to to getting there eventually any further comments if not we'll move to what's next on the agenda audits in progress yes sir 3a one internal audit of the grant process I have as you all know I have started the grant process internal audit trying to get this out free for the committee as soon as possible I'm going to be looking at a lot of invoices in the coming days and concentrating on in current expenses and also some compliance areas with the with the owners of the property who got the elevation so I'm going to be checking into those areas as well take a look at this let the committee know a little bit where I am with this yeah the this audit is a financial and compliance internal audit of Plaquemines Parish govern who is the sub grantee of the elevation reconstruction and acquisition grant project this internal audit will focus on the grants expenses and supporting documentation as I said it's ongoing I hope to have it out in June or July of this year and this this contract is like 12 14 million dollar contract that's 14 a little over 14 million 14 well I did the way I did it sir was I did they gave me a listing about all the grants and I took one of the highest dollar amounts and that was this one and just gonna go from there so it's really only one grant that I'm looking at but this is a big grant it's one of the ordinances the original ordinance was done in 2013 and there was a second Oregon stone in 2017 and it in secretary followed me up wanting to know what I did with the money yes right well somebody got it and when I complain to a council member about a week later we got the check thank you thank you for those comments but a grant that you're working on as an elevation grant which deals with many houses that will be many many houses that's correct yep anything else any further discussion on the item any questions hearing none does that complete your presentation mr. Duke yes sir it does any further business to come before us today I'd like to move to approve the minutes of the April 11 2019 meeting is there a second again thank you mr. Newberry any comments or discussion on the adoption of the April 11 2019 meeting minutes hearing none machine is open let the record reflect that the minutes were adopted 3 to 0 to adjourn Newberry he was open on e chairman and in meeting is adjourned at 10:00 11:00 a.m. and thank you all this morning for coming