Legislative Joint Auditing-State Agencies

Must go to the reports. Okay thank you madame chair today we're presenting three reports with findings and we also have six reports without finding the listed on page one of the summary without objection please file. Let's go ahead and hear the bad news and the good news. Okay the first report that we have with findings is the department of financimistration june thirty two thousand twenty two report in this report contains one finding. A review of salary adjustments in fiscal year two thousand twenty two revealed a part time employees hourly rate was erroneously raised from twelve dollars and fifty two cents to twenty five dollars in three c as result the employee was overpaid approximately twenty two hundred dollars over five month period until the face discovered the air and correct of the arab rate to fourteen dollars and I too sent the employee worked on a seasonal temporary basis an employment terminated in april two thousand twenty two manager that concludes the finding for DFA do we have anybody from dfa that would like to come the end of the table. You could please state your name. Yeah. Jim had seen sector DFA and a baby uh dfa do you have a statement for the group. A mam we've made our management response and will take any questions no thank you any questions from the committee. Yes senator bright i'm just curious what what were the current controls like that let this pass through versus with with the strength and controls might look like so the may flip over here to. Generally what was going on this was at a time when the legislature had. A approved the increase of gsl wine to gs or fives paying. And this one in advertising guide included in that makes them so what we did was we went back in our strengthen controls who was we reviewed all of those since this was cannot be one time issue but we did review everybody in the fna that was in those grades to make sure it didn't happen anymore and it was this only one time he we do believe it being isolated issue not like to be repeated so it's it's just a single employee single employee yes sir how can the other the other employees that were had this grade didn't get triggered I don't have a good answer for you it we looked at it and it looked like it was just a a system glitch when a program was ryan to update everybody's salary and it just inadvertently pulled hers even though she was not in a position that should have had that happen. Any further questions. Alright I think that concludes that report. Thank you committee thank you. Without objections list file that report mr tom what's next okay the next report is a game of fish commission june thirty two thousand twenty two report and this report contains two findings. The first finding the archaeology of fish commission notified us with the following this state property. On september sixth two thousand twenty two a while off officer reported the theft at the holobaron's dwma of a two thousand thirteen honda rancher ATV value at about fifty six hundred dollars additionally a fance was damaged for a parent entry into the compound. And then on april eleventh two thousand twenty three a game of fish employee reported that a two thousand five medal in close trader value five thousand dollars was stolen from game fish property. In the third one on may twenty third two thousand twenty three a while off also reported that the chain securing the gate at the gene rushed wma was cut and several items were stolen. And you could see those six or seven items are that we're stolen in the bullets. The value of all these arms from the generation that you may review just over sixteen thousand dollars. Incident reports were filed for all three of these these with local law enforcement officers. The second finding during our review of employee sickly payouts made during the physical year it revealed that due to calculation error by the ac one employee was overpaid approximately twenty five hundred dollars manager that concludes the findings for game fish do we have someone from game in fish. If you could state your name everybody i'm asked to move the director of the arkansas ambition thank you good afternoon any poorly assistant chief of fiscal okay thank you do you have a statement for the committee yes ma'am we can curb with yard of findings here we've incorporated changes based off of this with respect to the uh to the theft we continue to evaluate what our brick and order for print looks like throughout throughout the state and where balancing the cost with the risk of protecting the equipment that we have and almost all seventy five counties uh with respect to the overpayment of one of our former employees we discovered what the problem was we've made some changes to how we we calculate that that sickly payout when we list an employee and we fix that process going forward thought forty year questions. Committee. And said a bright and thank you in regards to your w a's how often these sites typically visited by personnel nearly every day. So safe to assume those these are courier just overnight or over a weekend yes or in the thefts it were reported here or one we were the ones that found we disclosed to law enforcement and an international that they always all involved some kind of forcible entry okay and and then you are sites have any type of game cams or any type of surveillance it's some of our facilities do have surveillance cameras sometimes where unable to make an ID base off that footage but not all of our equipment shared equipment that that kind of thing have cameras around so the ones that we do want to have security on is there like a value threshold that we store in there as a state prior to determining that or it's just really what can get we are we like to put as much in there as we possibly can there's obviously a risk in it because where concentrating it but with these work centers used almost every single day there's constantly thing things come in and and go on out. Okay thank you representative kinds of thing manager if you'll have any more of those fifty girl on fuel thanks her for the fuel for sale for a hundred dollars would you please give me demand sir. Anyone else alright think i'll take that report is filed thank you mr town what's next okay our last report is the department of ventures affairs june thirty two thousand twenty two report and this report also contains two findings. The first finding they're not review of contracts from right expenses he revealed that direct payments to revealed that there were two direct payments to two vendors direct payments are not tad to a contract with the asus which can cause contracts to be overpaid. Specifically the following issue were noted for the quality staff in contract as of june thirty thousand twenty two this contract including amendments totally one and a half million dollars with payments charges against the contract tolling almost seven hundred and sixty seven thousand we discover one direct payment to quality staffing towing over twenty six thousand dollars for how the health care as of june thirty two thousand twenty two that contract including a minute told about two million dollars with payments charged against the contract tolding about one point three six million. And we discover one direct payment towing almost five thousand dollars for this contract these payments would not have created contract overseas you can see but they could lead to average in the future and then although outside the physical you're under audit we also discovered an additional direct payment in physically your death where they're tolding almost thirty two thousand dollars to holland health care. Additionally the contract listening provided by the ac was outdated in complete. And the second finding are of your expenses revealed one vendor that provided dreaks for the fate bill veterans home was paid over thirty three thousand dollars. Although a perch store was created documented competitive big information or a contract could not be provided manager that concludes the fines for department vegetables do we have someone from veterans affairs that can come forward. Please state your name in possession. A good afternoon my name is kinderparent secretary for veterans affairs thank you scott stanger chief of staff for veterans thank you. So mem we came on board in the sec veterans affairs both mister stanger and I on the eleventh of january since we came on board and we have had almost a one hundred percent turnover in our finance shop we have a one of our original members still working force we had a dev- identified some some issues in our finances and it originally intended to reach out two legislative audit to ask for an assessment of of our status we found out we already had allegedly voted scheduled for the year and we brought him in and so they were able to give us this report that you have available to you we think we have controls in place at this point to take care of all of the findings of i'll let mister stanger go into the details as well as the controls we put in place at a preclude just from happening in the future. Thank you mister stanger. Yeah in regards to the quality staff and in holland health care. There again that happened in a two thousand twenty two we had arrived here yet the looking at the forensics of the transactions we don't know exactly why the previous administration did a direct payment outside of the contract is like it was state in the report there was plenty of money to cover it on the contract itself they did what is called a sixty which is just a transaction at asus our assumption at that point is it was just erroneous that they made the wrong kind of transaction and asus to pay an invoice especially for a contract that had money on it. We don't do that obviously you know we stay with them that we say within the limit of the contract and then we pay invoices as they come into the the second finding. The the amount was over the twenty thousand dollars threshold as soon as we came on board we noticed there were some that were borderline twenty thousand so what we especially for services we put a management control that if anything any item or services looks like it's going to be above eighteen thousand dollars we automatically now do competitive bids I have seen in the past where you do a bid for a service it comes in at eighteen or nineteen thousand dollars in the final invoice comes in at twenty five thousand or you know twenty one hundred or whatever it comes over a little bit over so we bumped the internal threshold down to eighteen thousand dollars to prevent that in this case when we're talking thirty three thousand there again for the for the items in the fable home since we don't know the vendor at the time it falls within the threshold of a minority vendor we have ads we have had that happen before we've gone back and looked at the the the accounting the documentation was poor at the time but this case we couldn't track back to find out if the vendor was a minority that or not despite the fact that we've had some in the past so that's our assumption but there again we weren't there so. But you now have the controls in place correct yes man yeah so we have we we have a sub threshold on on what he vendors to that's that's thirty five thousand internal and eighteen thousand for everything else to prevent that ex- that exact incident from ever happening okay I understand there on the quality staffing and on highland health care that was a logging issue it wasn't a misplacement of funds or anything it was simply house logged into the price and into the computer correct. A documenting issue correct if it's it's either that or whoever actually paid the invoice that was an outstanding invoice that had to be paid they literally paid it wrong instead of paying tieing it back for the contract work should have been originally they paid it through a direct payment and logged it in and asus as a direct payment alright thank you members questions. Okay representative so you mention when you in your for open a comment situation was a hundred percent turnover in the finance apartment was a voluntary and did have anything to do with with these issues. So so not all of the turnover was voluntary but uh some there were some vacancies when we got there and then we created some vacancies and then we've gone out and hard new option to the uh the positions. Night specifically with those issues it did have a little bit as far as going through the audit ourselves with our auditor when we first got there in january the eleventh the the previous cfo had left that previous october and then coming on board a tech about a month to get a cfo so advert that time had been to was that little five months without a cfo the accountant was there procurement had one foot out the door or if they are now gone so we've had some turnover that. Occurs with changes administration obviously but some other folks move down to bigger and better things and then. Some other folks. Decided to leave once new management was there. Okay thank you representative any other questions okay representative word law. Thank you and I have a motion to file thank you any other business mister tom alright