Audits in Progress
These summaries of the audits currently approved or under way link to
the audit "scope statement" approved by the Legislative Post
Audit Committee or (for audits conducted by the school audit team) by
the 2010 Commission. The scope statement outlines the questions the audit
will try to answer and the methods we would use to answer those questions.
(Files in PDF format are 15 KB or smaller).
Department of Corrections:
Determining Whether the Department Has Adequate Policies and Procedures
in Place to Deal with Misconduct by Staff at Correctional Facilities
A recent article in a Topeka paper told about corrections officers exhanging
cash and contraband-such as tobacco, pharmaceuticals, and illegal drugs-for
sexual favors at the Topeka Correctional Facility. Legislators want to
know whether Kansas has adequate policies, procedures, and legal sanctions
to prevent trafficking in contraband and sexual misconduct at correctional
institutions and whether existing policies and procedures were being followed
at the Topeka Correctional Facility.
Scope
statement
K-12 Education:
Reviewing the Potential for Cost Savings From Reorganization of Kansas
School Districts
Currently, Kansas has 295 school districts compared to 2,600 in 1960.
In 1999 the State Board of Education contracted with the education consulting
firm of Augenblick and Myers to conduct the comprehensive boundary study
of Kansas school districts to determine if the public school system could
be more efficiently and effectively operated under a different configuration.
The Firm concluded that the total number of districts Statewide could
be reduced to somewhere between 255 to 284 districts depending on the
approach taken. Also in 1999 the Legislature provided financial incentives
for school districts to voluntarily consolidate. The law essentially allows
districts that consolidate to receive additional funding for several years
after the consolidation. In 2008-2009, 10 districts had fewer than 100
students enrolled. The Legislature is interested in looking at school
boundaries to determine whether there are less costly ways to configure
school districts in Kansas.
Scope
statement
Judicial Districts in Kansas: Determining Whether Boundaries
Could Be Redrawn To Increase Efficiency and Reduce Costs
A 1979 performance audit conducted of the court system shortly after
it was unified found, among other things, that unification had little
effect on the time it took to process cases, and that caseloads were not
evenly distributed. It also found there were wide variations in cases
per non-judicial employee and in the number of employees per judge. A
second audit, conducted in 1997, found that statutory constraints prevented
the Supreme Court from permanently reallocating existing judgeships to
equalize workloads, and because of that, the wide variance in judicial
caseloads had changed little since unification. The audit found that judges
in some districts had caseloads of less than 400 cases, while judges in
other districts had caseloads as high as 2,300 cases. Recently, legislators
have raised questions about whether the boundaries of judicial districts
in the State should be redrawn to potentially reduce costs and even out
caseload discrepancies.
Scope
statement
K-12 Education:
Reviewing School Districts' Use of Medicaid Reimbursements To Pay for
Special Education Services
The federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act requires states
to provide special education services to all children between the ages
of 3 and 21 who need special services because of conditions such as mental
retardation, hearing or visual impairment, emotional disturbance, or autism.
Because some of these services are health-related, school districts and
special education cooperatives can bill Medicaid to help pay for these
services if the students are eligible. School districts have never been
reimbursed for all the health-related services they provide to Medicaid-eligible
students. A 2003 Legislative Post Audit report found that districts were
missing out on $3 million to $5 million in Medicaid funding because they
hadn't obtained parental consent to bill for services. Beginning with
the 2007-08 school year, several changes were made to the rules for school-based
Medicaid that made it even more difficult to get reimbursed, which further
reduced the total amount of school-based Medicaid funding. Members of
the 2010 Commission have expressed concerns about whether school districts
are missing out on large amounts of Medicaid funding for special education
services.
Scope statement
K-12 Education:
Reviewing Issues Related to the Cost of the Health Care Benefits Provided
By School Districts
Employee insurance costs-primarily health insurance-have grown substantially
over the last several years, from just more than $195 million for the
2003-04 school year, to almost $250 million for the 2007-08 school year.
Overall, employee insurance costs represent nearly 5% of school districts'
total reported expenditures for 2007-08. Because health insurance costs
represent such a large cost for school districts, members of the 2010
Commission recently have expressed an interest in finding out whether
there are ways districts could better control these costs.
Scope
statement
K-12 Education:
Efficiency Audit of the Derby School District
This audit will look at the Derby school district as a follow up to the
efficiency of school district's operation audit that was done in July
2009 which looked at district staffing and expenditure data to identify
areas where spending for districts appeared to be out-of-line compared
with their peers. The Derby school district requested to be part of this
audit to help them identify ways they could reduce costs without affecting
the education they provide students.
Scope statement
K-12 Education:
Efficiency Audit of the Ellinwood School District
This audit will look at the Ellinwood school district as a follow up
to the efficiency of school district's operation audit that was done in
July 2009 which looked at district staffing and expenditure data to identify
areas where spending for districts appeared to be out-of-line compared
with their peers. The Ellinwood school district requested to be part of
this audit to help them identify ways they could reduce costs without
affecting the education they provide students.
Scope
statement
K-12 Education:
Efficiency Audit of the Renwick School District
This audit will look at the Renwick school district as a follow up to
the efficiency of school district's operation audit that was done in July
2009 which looked at district staffing and expenditure data to identify
areas where spending for districts appeared to be out-of-line compared
with their peers. The Renwick school district requested to be part of
this audit to help them identify ways they could reduce costs without
affecting the education they provide students.
Scope statement
K-12 Education:
Efficiency Audit of the Winfield School District
This audit will look at the Winfield school district as a follow up to
the efficiency of school district's operation audit that was done in July
2009 which looked at district staffing and expenditure data to identify
areas where spending for districts appeared to be out-of-line compared
with their peers. The Winfield school district requested to be part of
this audit to help them identify ways they could reduce costs without
affecting the education they provide students.
Scope statement
Kansas Tax Revenues:
Reviewing Tax Credits and Exemptions
Kansas has enacted a number of taxes to fund government operations. A
few examples are individual and corporate income tax, privilege tax (on
financial institutions), sales and use tax, motor fuel taxes, mineral
taxes, and the like. Over the years, the Legislature has enacted a variety
of tax credtis and exemptions designed to stimulate certain types of economic
activity or to achieve other public purposes. For example, a taxpayer
who makes a cash donation of $250 or more in the Kansas Community Entrepreneurship
Fund receives a tax credit of 50% of the amount donated. Some credits
are commonly claimed and account for large amounts of foregone tax revenue,
while other credits are less frequently used. With the proliferation of
credits and exemptions over the years, legislators have expressed an interest
in knowing whether some of those credits and exemptions still are needed
or whether they have outlived their original purposes. They also want
to know whether transferrable tax credits represent an effective use of
taxpayer dollars.
Scope statement
Kansas Public Employees Retirement System:
Reviewing How the Recent Economic Downturn Has Affected the System's
Funding Situation
Legislators have expressed concern about the extent to which the recent
economic downturn has adversely affected the value of the Kansas Public
Retirement System's investment portfolio and the System's ability to pay
future benefits.
Scope
statement
Fiscal Notes:
Determining Whether the Process for Preparing Fiscal Estimates In Kansas
Could Be Improved
The Division of the Budget estimates that 750-800 fiscal notes are prepared
during a legislative session. About two-thirds of those have a specific
dollar impact tied to them. Legislators have expressed concerns about
the accuracy of fiscal notes in Kansas, and whether State agencies are
held accountable for the reliability of the estimates they provide to
the Budget Director. In addition, they want to know if there is more Kansas
could do to provide better estimates of the potential benefits for economic
development fiscal notes.
Scope statement
Agency Data Centers:
Assessing the Potential Savings of Consolidation
According
to the most recent set of agency IT plans compiled by the Kansas Informatiion
Technology Office, executive branch agencies (excluding the Regents institutions)
spent more than $111 million on IT services in fiscal year 2007. One of
the major IT cost areas is the operation and maintenance of data servers.
According to the IT plans, agencies currently operate four large mainframe
systems and more than 2,100 smaller servers. Legislators are interested
in knowing whether there is potential for significant cost savings in
Kansas from consolidating data centers, and what potential up-front costs
would be need to be incurred.
Scope statement
State Agency Staffing:
Reviewing Management Positions Across Selected State Agencies
Legislators have expressed concerns that, in some cases, State salary
dollars may be going to create and maintain management positions when
the money might be better spent on frontline workers who deliver services
to the public. Accordingly, they want to know how agencies compare in
the percent of their total positions that are management, and whether
money could be saved by reducing the amount of management staff in agencies
that seem management heavy.
Scope
statement
Data Mining:
Reviewing State Data Systems for Inappropriate Payments
This audit would apply some of the same techniques used to identify improper
payments to ineligible clients in the Medicaid Program to some other entitlement
programs. Auditors will look to see if the State's current practices adequately
address the identified risk for abuse and non-compliance; and are there
instances of abuse and non-compliance actually occurring.
Scope
statement
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