Auditor General releases summary reviews of Illinois agencies

Every year the Illinois Auditor General’s Office releases its annual reports, which includes a roundup of audits conducted mostly of state agencies from the past year.

Some previous audits contained remarkable finds, like a bridge that the Department of Transportation hadn’t inspected in more than a decade. The bridge in the metro-east with the longest time since inspection is the Eads Bridge, which hasn’t been reviewed since May 2010.

Meanwhile, the Department of Aging mistakenly paid out $360,000 in benefits to dead or incarcerated individuals. The department spent $3,159.14 of that money in Madison and St. Clair counties.

The department had made the mistake because it lacked “sufficient controls to ensure timely identification of ... changes in eligibility,” according to the original audit and the summary report.

Since then, the Department of Aging has recouped most of that money, a rarity for a government agency, Veronica Vera, an agency spokeswoman explained to the News-Democrat.

As of last week, only $841.13 remain uncollected.

Vera said the mistaken payments were less than 1 percent of the total billable population in the state, and since the original audit of its 2014 fiscal year, the department has changed some policies to better handle its money. What’s more, some counties were able to show that some recipients were, in fact, alive, and that the auditor’s office got a few things wrong itself.

The Auditor General’s office also found itself under the microscope, by the National State Auditors Association.

“The September 2014 peer review of the Auditor General’s audit processes resulted in an unmodified (clean) opinion,” the Auditor General’s summary report stated.

The Auditor General, which reviews state agencies for financial accuracy, program compliance, performance and the health of their computer systems, is combed over every three years, and every assessment since 1996 have yielded clean opinions.

For the other state agencies, it wasn’t as pretty. Here are some highlights:

Department of Transportation

IDOT “did not timely perform inspections of bridges.” According to the agency’s own methods, 45 local bridges were overdue for inspections, ranging from two months to 2 1/2 years. One bridge, which was rated as structurally deficient, was found to be 10 1/2 years overdue, though the audit didn’t specify which one. State bridges were inspected on time, but information on 25 of them hadn’t been entered into the system as of May 2014.

In the metro-east, the bridges with the longest time since an inspection included three over the Mississippi River — Eads Bridge (2010), Interstate 255 (2011) and Highway 51 near Chester (2011) — two over drainage ditches in Breese (2012) and Granite City (2012), and one 425-foot span over Shoal Creek at Sorento Avenue in Bond County (2012).

The report also found that:

▪  71 of 1,131 special inspections were overdue

▪  12 of 484 underwater inspections were overdue

▪  Records weren’t clear enough to show when 303 Fracture Critical tests on 124 bridges were supposed to take place

▪  58 bridges constructed at least four years ago are missing inspections

Department of Natural Resources

The DNR did not collect 1,019 assessment fees of $500 for consultations under the Endangered Species Protection Act, which resulted in more than $500,000 in uncollected revenue.

Historic Preservation Agency

The agency did not have a third party review of its cache of artifacts. Additionally, the audit “noted approximately 500 rare coins were not cataloged in the system.”

Department of Corrections

In 2014, more than $1 million overtime hours at the Department of Corrections racked up nearly $50 million in pay. Reviewing the overtime payments of 20 correctional employees at the Logan Correctional Center in Lincoln and the Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill, near Joliet, an audit revealed that 10 employees claimed overtime during days they took leave, including one person who did so 19 times.

Illinois State Police

The department “did not exercise adequate control over the recording and reporting of its state property and equipment,” including 39 of 57 items “listed as lost or missing (that) could possibly have confidential information stored on them.”

In addition to several other financial discrepancies, the State Police also could not explain $1.3 million of differences on its books in 2013 and $675,000 from 2014.

University of Illinois

The college often improperly executed the contracting process. For example, in a review of 67 contracts, nine didn’t contain the signature of the employee signing on behalf of the University comptroller.

Among other things, the paperwork of eight leases on 25 university properties weren’t completed until after the leases began.

Lottery Department

An audit in June 2014 showed that miscalculation of prize money amounted to $7.3 million of overstated payout liability for Instant games. It also revealed a discrepancy of nearly $5 million in the accounts-receivable department.

The audit also found that annuity prizes payable and long-term annuity prizes payable overstated by $244,000 and $4.5 million, respectively, and investment income and interest expense were overstated and understated by $4.8 million and $60,000, respectively.

Department of Human Services

The agency overstated its allowance of double accounts by more than $110 million.

Housing Development Authority

The authority didn’t update loan ratings, explain current loan ratings, or properly calculate the allowance for loan loss — things like the likelihood of default — in its financial statements.

Central Management Services

This department assists about 106 state institutions with payroll, inventory, timekeeping and accounting. A review of the department found that user identities weren’t verified properly when people reset their passwords and that the department made poor risk assessment operations and poorly enacted security noncompliance policies.

Seven agencies had inadequate information-recovery plans, and seven agencies didn’t secure confidential information properly.

Small Business contracts

State agencies must award 10 percent of contracts to small businesses. In fiscal year 2013, agencies awarded 16.6 percent, succeeding the state’s goal. In fiscal year 2014, agencies awarded 14.4 percent. In fiscal year 2015, agencies awarded 15.6 percent.

Free hotline

The Auditor General started running a toll-free hotline for reports of fraud allegations in January 2012.

The number, 1-855-217-1895, is available 24 hours a day and is staffed from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. from Monday through Friday.

Whistleblowers can also report suspected wrongdoing online at auditor.illinois.gov, by email at oag.hotline@illinois.gov, at 1-888-261-2887 for teletype, and by writing to Fraud Hotline, Auditor General’s Office, 740 E. Ash St., Springfield, IL 62703.

This story was originally published March 23, 2016 at 10:14 AM with the headline "Auditor General releases summary reviews of Illinois agencies."