MIN CHARTER 2018-09-14 (2018-2020)

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Hawai`i County Charter Commission -3 September 14, 2018 MS. TODD: So the question I have is whether the Section 3-16 should be either deleted or amended to reflect that instead it should be pursuant to Section 3-18 and the audit schedule that you set out because on the State side, the State Auditor which is, this is modeled after what used to be called "The State Legislative Auditor". She has that independence, or he, actually it's Les Kondo now, so he has that independence but basically the legislature had the right to every year ask for specific audits of programs that they were concerned about and then the Auditor had the flexibility to set up their own program of what they would go and audit. So I was thinking that following that State model might more accurately reflect what is actually going on as opposed to paying lip service to this section and saying that the Council is actually critically reviewing or doing a program review, cause according to them they are doing it every year and we both know that that is not what a real program review would be -what occurs during the budget. So just, I wondered about your thoughts. MS. NIMS: Sure. A couple of thoughts. First off, to maintain our independence, the Council can suggest that we do audits. We can accept or not. So to have the Council, I guess it would depend on the wording of 3-16 and if it was a mandated "you will look at the departments or the programs that we are requesting" that could impair our independence. If it is a "you shall consider", that could be a possibility. As far as doing you know a program, a full Yellow Book Program Audit for every program, I would have to have hundreds of employees. It is just not going to happen. You know, we can do spot checks like cash counts, looking at travel expenditures, looking at p card expenditures, things like that, but to really get in the nit and gritty, you know, even to do one department, it would take probably three or four staff at least a year. You know, it is not a feasible thing to require all departments to be audited every year. Now, we do a risk assessment every year when we do our Annual Audit Plan, where we can take Council requests under consideration, constituent requests, you know things we hear in Council meetings, things that we read in the paper, as well as discussions I have had with department employees, administrators, etc. So we take a wide variety for our risk assessment and that could be an element of it. I wouldn't want it—to see it drive our audit plan. Does that answer your question? MS. TODD: Sort of. (inaudible). MS. NIMS: Okay. Page 29