09-17-2002 Special Called Regular Meeting

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Audit Committee Meeting Minutes -September 17, 2002 -Page 9 direction to be able to make those types of determination. Generally, you will find some type of Travel Policy, Purchasing Policy that clearly says that it governs those levels of transactions. Quite frankly, in your case, those do not exist. Mr. Tiller instructed the City to be sure we are all staying within the guidelines the City operates under. Ask additional questions. The auditors will be addressing specific requests and gathering information. Statistically, in terms of this information, any auditor, whether the District Attorney's office or anybody else, will be hard pressed to give you comparison between this and any other entity. Probably what that type of office would do, is look at our report, look at all the files we built, determine if they see any problems from their perspective, based on their guidelines and charges. Again, Mr. Tiller stressed the opportunity to visit with him for further explanation of the draft report. As an example of documentation for a meal, what was going on, who was in attendance, the receipt and a reasonable explanation of that meal. This would be a reasonable transaction. If they were having this meal with someone, and you did not feel they should have the City pay the bill, depending on their level, this will need to be clarified by Council. You need to decide how much overlay of control you want. The most poorly documented area in most other entities is why you were there. This needs to be done as the document for payment is prepared. The auditor saw varied types of handling of event type documentation; all the way from the charge slip, the trip file or seminar file, event file, generally more than one person as a group. Accounts Payable needs to refer to cross-reference on check requisitions where the documentation will be residing for those types of things. This should not happen at the post statement standpoint; this should happen upfront, prior to submission of that invoice for payment. Mr. Meismer asked if this was common practice, with support being collected by the secretary/assistant and/or access of a calendar, substantiation of why and what was going on was not done very often. In the auditor's opinion, all the records they asked for and obtained were for further support and to fill in the gaps, In my opinion, as I expected this was prepared in response to our memo and did not exist in files, they had to go and compile that information A function in the American Express case is you get one statement, which covers three or four cardholders; and comes to one assistant, or secretary. Their responsibility is to try and find something to get the statement documented and sent on to accounts payable before it goes past the delinquent payment date. You are a very busy operation and the emphasis is not put on maintaining the records; they did not even have a form to help them accomplish this task. They may have to buttonhole an employee to get an explanation. If a cardholder who generally did not have much activity; when the statement arrived and they had two charges, my suspicion is probably a telephone call was made, asking for detail charges on this statement. If it arrived in time, the statement was sent forward. There were no clear directions for that person to follow on going through that process. A comment from the audience was there was no clear direction of who should be the recipient of the statements. The American Express statements were received by the Administrative Assistant of the City Manager. If she had been given receipts by any of the cardholders, she would attach them and verify their validity. Even without a receipt, she would know what the cardholder stated the charge was. A check request was prepared and