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