OCA Audit Reports

Issued: December 2007

SUMMARY

Our Office has completed work on the Austin Water Utility Easement Releases and Infrastructure Relocations audit. This work was undertaken as a result of our initial risk assessment conducted for the Austin Water Utility audit initiative. This report, in the form of the presentation to this committee and its attachments, transmits our findings.

Early work on this audit informed us as to the complexity of the processes involved in releasing the Utility’s easements and relocating its infrastructure. There are three City departments which have major roles: the Austin Water Utility, Watershed Protection and Development Review, and Public Works. Within these departments, multiple divisions supply various services. Other City departments, such as the Law Department and the Economic Growth and Redevelopment Services Office, may also be involved, depending on the nature of the project. In addition, there are multiple processes with different process owners that cut across the departments involved. Through Control Self-Assessment (CSA) as part of this audit project, participants from these departments identified a number of significant risks that exist within these processes, along with controls to mitigate the risks.

We found that the authority and responsibility for these multiple functions are decentralized to the various departments without a centralized control to ensure that the various easement management processes are consistent and flow seamlessly among departments and workgroups involved. We also found that responsibility for easement-related records and information is fragmented, so that staff involved in easement management do not always have current and/or correct information with which to do their jobs.

We have issued one recommendation, with which management has concurred.

Download the entire text of our Austin Water Utility Easement Releases and Infrastructure Relocations audit report/presentation (Size: 620 KB) in Adobe Acrobat or watch the video of the presentation given at the Audit & Finance Committee meeting on January 22, 2008. The video presentation constitutes the audit report. You will need Adobe's Acrobat Reader to view these files. Or request a hard copy of this audit report, No. AU06114, by submitting this audit report request form.


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