Richardson releases 2019-20 audit plan

Secretary of State Dennis Richardson and the Oregon Audits Division released the 2019-20 Annual Audit Plan on Thursday.

“As public servants, we work for you, the citizens of Oregon,” Richardson said in a news release. “Our auditing approach is citizen-centric with the key goal of expanding transparency, accountability, and integrity in Oregon government.”

This is the second publicly released audit plan in agency history. It lists the planned audits for the coming year, including performance, financial, and IT audits. The plan also details the Audits Dvision’s functions, capabilities, and audit strategy, which is essential to a citizen-centric focused program.

“I’m pleased to report we successfully executed last year’s audit plan and delivered a diverse range of substantive and impactful audits with agencies agreeing with over 99% of our audit recommendations,” said Kip Memmott, director of the Audits Division. “This year’s plan builds upon those successes, including a more robust recommendation follow-up program, cybersecurity assessments, and audits that cover a broad range of state programs and agencies.”

This year’s plan includes audits regarding:

Protecting vulnerable children, including abuse reporting, family separation policies, and ethnic inequity; Education support programs for children with special needs; Mental health treatment; College/career readiness; Education funding focusing on high school graduation and college and career readiness; Potential options for addressing rapidly rising costs for health insurance and the Public Employee Retirement System (PERS); Evaluating state policies and practices to address and prevent harassment and discrimination; Water quality; Modernizing information systems and security, legal review of state contracts and related costs, and state property management; Transportation safety projects; Regional economic development efforts and tourism promotion; and Protecting personally identifiable data.

The plan also details our strategy to staff a full-time Medicaid audit team. Medicaid accounts for a significant percentage of the state budget. Therefore, we have requested funding from the Legislature for the establishment of this team in our budget to help ensure that resources go to those with the highest need.

Read the full Audit Plan on the Secretary of State website.