OCA Audit Reports

Issued: August 2008

This project was added to our service plan at the request of former Mayor Pro Tem, Betty Dunkerley. She wanted to know what financial control positions the City had lost during the last economic downturn and whether they had been restored. In doing this work we did not undertake an assessment of the adequacy of financial control across the City. This project speaks only to the positions that were lost in the downturn and, the location of positions that have not been restored.

In 2002 the City’s revenue stream began a downward trend that has only recently begun to rebound. Without the collection of projected revenue for Fiscal Year 2002 (FY02), the City could not implement the full budget originally adopted for that year, but instead began four years of cost containment, hiring freezes and budget reductions. Restoration of financial control positions began in 2006.

We found that the City has not recovered the number of financial control positions that were lost during the downturn. We looked at changes in the number of financial control positions from five perspectives and found that overall an average of 5% of the positions were not restored, while the total number of regular City employees grew by 19% from its highest pre-downturn level.

• Employee positions providing citywide financial corporate oversight functions are 9% lower then before the downturn;
• The number of positions that have at least some financial control duties slightly exceeded the maximum pre-downturn level (4%);
• Positions that are purely financial (classified as “Financial Family” by the City’s Human Resources Department) also slightly exceeded the maximum pre-downturn level (3%);
• The number of Support Services Program FTEs (Full Time Equivalents) is 20% lower then it was in 2002 according to the City’s Budget documents;
• In the Financial Monitoring/ Budgeting Activity, a subgroup of Departmental Support Services Programs, FTEs fell short of the pre-downturn level by 3%.

We also found that of the City’s 25 departments, the Health & Human Services Department, Law Office, Municipal Court, and the Office of the City Auditor show loss compared to the pre-downturn level in all four departmental financial groups we analyzed and their departmental representatives indicated lack of sufficient resources for effective financial control. Eleven additional departments have unrestored financial control positions in some of the financial groups. Those eleven department are: The City Clerk’s Office, Police Department, Neighborhood Housing and Community Development Office, Communication and Public Information Office, Financial and Administrative Services Department, Parks and Recreation Department, Fire Department, Library Department, Human Resources Department, Small Business Resource Department and Emergency Medical Services Department. Overall, the Support Services Fund has unrestored financial control positions in all groups that we analyzed.

We have issued one recommendation aimed at ensuring that the City’s Chief Financial Officer takes into consideration the adequacy of financial control staffing levels as part of the City’s annual budget development process.

Download the entire text of our Impact of the 2002-2005 Downturn on Financial Control Positions (Size: 1.32 MB) in Adobe Acrobat. You will need Adobe's Acrobat Reader to view these files. Or request a hard copy of this audit report, No. AU08102, by submitting this audit report request form.

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