>> Audit Reports

Fiscal Management Post-Payment Audit Report Summary
Texas Residential Construction Commission
Fiscal 2010 First Quarter

We audited a sample of certain payroll, purchase, and travel transactions of the Texas Residential Construction Commission (Commission) that processed through USAS and USPS during the period beginning Sept. 1, 2008, through Aug. 31, 2009. We reviewed a sample of purchase and travel transactions, and the related procurement methods. We also reviewed a detail of the payroll transactions processed during the audit period.

We commend the Commission on satisfactorily resolving many of the errors identified during fieldwork. We attribute the Commission's performance to its staff's attention to detail and knowledge of the rules and laws governing expenditures. Although we did not identify significant monetary errors, the Commission must formally address the following issues: missing receiving documentation, missing warrant hold review, prompt payment and scheduling, and control weakness over expenditure processing. No projections were made from these findings due to the relatively low dollar amounts in error.

We would like to acknowledge the Commission's compliance in the following areas:

In conjunction with our post-payment audit of the Commission's expenditures, we reviewed the Commission's internal control structure. Our review was limited to obtaining an understanding of the Commission's controls sufficient to plan our audit and did not include tests of control policies and procedures. We noted certain situations involving the internal control structure and its operation that must be addressed. The Commission designated three employees with multiple security capabilities to process payments without oversight of another person. We ran a test to see whether any of the Commission’s payment documents processed through USAS or USPS during the audit because of the actions of only one person. There was one USAS document totaling $400.00 that processed without oversight. Our review indicates that this payment was characteristic of the Commission’s normal expenditures and no additional issues were noted.

We concluded a prior post-payment audit of the Commission's payroll, purchase, and travel transactions on March 14, 2006. Two findings from the previous audit were identified in the current audit: prompt payment and scheduling errors and control weakness over expenditure processing. The current audit shows that the Commission made improvements in all area.