Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY — The agency that oversees emergency dispatch and police radio systems in Utah still has some work ahead to prevent money from being stolen again, a new state audit shows.
The state auditor's office found that inadequate separation of duties leaves the Utah Communications Authority open to further misuse of its resources. Also, procurement and disbursement policies are lacking, which could result in errors or theft.
"When you have one person doing all the stuff and when you don't have any other person providing any type of oversight or compensating controls, you have a high risk," said State Auditor John Dougall.
An audit in the spring showed Patricia Nelson, who worked for the communications authority for 17 years before being fired, and her daughter, Crystal Evans, acknowledged misusing agency credit cards for personal purchases totaling more than $800,000 over 10 years.
The agency has taken steps to correct the deficiencies and ensure compliance with the law, transparency and sound financial management, including hiring an independent accounting firm to handle its finances.
"The firm has multiple people assigned to our account which helps create the separation of duties (the Utah Communications Authority) has lacked in the past," according to the agency's governing board.
Dougall said the agency is taking the right steps in the right direction, but change won't happen overnight. He said it would take a "year or two to right the ship."
Related
Lawsuit: Employee bilked public safety communication agency out of $1M in purchases
A lawsuit filed by the Utah Communications Authority claims one of its recently fired employees has admitted to stealing about $1 million from the company through the fraudulent use of an agency credit card over the course of more than 10 years.A separate audit the by the legislative auditor general released last week concluded that the state auditor's office could have detected the fraud in 2010 or 2011 had it used "greater professional skepticism" in reviewing the communications authority.
Dougall, who was not the state auditor at the time, said the audit six years ago was not designed to find fraud. The financial audit did what it was supposed to do, but it did have weaknesses, he said.
Since being elected auditor in 2012, Dougall has taken more of what he calls a watchdog role over state agencies.
