The Auditor-General's second report for the City of Greater Sudbury took aim at two departments that handle significant amounts of money: city transit and parking services.
His report, based off an audit conducted between April 15 and May 31, was presented to city council's audit committee on Aug. 9. Most of the discussion centred on city transit.
“As transit and parking handle large amounts of cash on a daily basis, internal controls are necessary to prevent mishandling of funds and to safeguard against loss and/or theft,” Bigger wrote in his report.
“Cash is highly susceptible to misappropriation.”
The two departments earned a fair rating. This is above the weak rating earned by the city winter roads asphalt program in the first audit Bigger released in June.
Among the areas of concern flagged by Bigger were the following:
- There were no formally-documented policies and procedures for cash handling
- A lack of segregation of duties within key functions at both the transit depot and kiosk allowed individuals access to transit passes, cash and control records during the process of distributing transit passes, increasing risk of theft
- Combinations to vaults and safes were not being changed regularly, including when employees had a change in position or left the job
- Transit passes were not kept in a secured location with access limited to authorized employees
- Transit kiosk sales of transit passes were on a cash only basis instead of allowing credit or debit cards
Bigger said he was impressed city managers had quickly implemented most of the recommendations from his audit report and a KPMG independent report previously completed in 2009.
One of the changes would see the addition of debit services to the transit depot. According to Roger Sauve, director of transit services, the feature will be added once the kiosk has been moved further down the building.
That change would bring the transit depot into line with other departments and reduce the amount of cash handled, Bigger said.
Sauve said he was pleased by Bigger's report.
“Over the past few years the transit section has been overhauling its cash handling policies/procedures and overall security,” he said.
“The audit process completed our work by dotting the 'I's and crossing the 'T's. We have taken all recommendations very seriously and have either implemented them or are in the process of doing so.”
Sauve said he was confident that his operation would receive an excellent rating in the future and would be a standard bearer for best practices within municipal operations.
Though he could not confirm what next would be the subject of his audit team, Bigger said he was interested in reviewing the city's summer roads program, including infrastructure projects now underway.
