Sacramento County Grand Jury 2017-2018 • Observing the agency operations and environment • Inspecting the specific risk

The Sacramento County Internal Audit Unit lacks the necessary independence to perform operational audits and report their findings directly to the Board of Supervisors. Currently, there are five separate levels of supervision between the unit and the Board. As stated earlier, the grand jury believes that these multiple layers of reporting can diminish accuracy, effectiveness, and accountability.

Sacramento County lacks a process for independent outside operational audits. The current practice is for departments to perform operational audits from within, using an operational audit team composed of members of that department. This approach reinforces long standing practices, and does not lend itself to innovation, efficiency and streamlining.

There is a lack of public transparency in the current audit process. Websites are disorganized and confusing. It is not easy to find a current schedule of audits or past audits. There are no clear mission statements or objectives shown for the Department of Finance or its sections.

Current staffing levels are not at maximum strength and are not sufficient to undertake an increased role in performing internal operational audits.

Sacramento County currently lacks staff in the audit section with the breadth of experience or broader education to also process operational audits, in addition to financial audits.

Audit Reports that are available to the public are often written to address specific accounting and legal needs and are not readily understandable to the public. Reports conform to financial standards, requiring some degree of experience on behalf of the reader.

The Audit Committee is comprised of department heads. Other governments that have established audit committees have included decision-makers (elected officials) and members of the public to assist the Board and the Auditor in fulfilling oversight responsibilities. 24