This week, the lone Council policy committee holding a meeting is the Audit Committee, which has a relatively busy docket.

If you'd like more detail on anything summarized here, click the agenda, then click on the item. Over on the right side of the page, you'll see links to a staff report and other pieces of supporting material.

Audit Committee -- Wednesday, Sept. 30

The Audit Committee meeting, chaired by Councilmember Scott Sherman, begins at 9 a.m.

Regular readers of "The People's Business" know that the City hasn't had a permanent City Auditor since September 2018 and that the Auditor's office is currently being led by an interim auditor, Kyle Elser (pictured). On Wednesday, the Audit Committee's meeting agenda includes several items related to this matter.

For one, the committee will receive a progress report on the search for a permanent auditor from the Council's Independent Budget Analyst, which is leading the recruitment process. Thirty-six people applied for the position, including 15 who don't have one of the certifications required. An undisclosed number of top candidates have been interviewed by a subcommittee and a subset of them have been forwarded to the full Audit Committee for a second round of interviews.

Which leads us to another item on the agenda. The committee will conduct private interviews with those second-round survivors and then forward no fewer than three of them to the full City Council for the final round of the process.

Finally, in a third item on this matter, the committee will discuss the initial annual compensation for the person who's ultimately chosen as the new City Auditor.

Now, on to the rest of the agenda:

• Performance Audit of the San Diego Police Department’s Data Analysis: Yesterday, the City Auditor released its latest performance audit, this one a dive into the reliability and completeness of data reported by San Diego Police Department. The audit reviewed the department's internal controls surrounding the collection, review, and reporting of crime and Racial and Identity Profiling Act (RIPA) data. It also reviewed the department's use of crime data for operational evaluation and decision making and reviewed its policies and procedures for receiving and reporting on complaints against officers.

The Auditor made nine recommendations to improve crime reporting, RIPA reporting, data analysis, and the complaint process, and SDPD has agreed to implement all of them.

• Performance Audit of City Street Sweeping: Last week, the Auditor released a performance audit of the Transportation and Stormwater Department’s (TSW) street sweeping program. The audit identified three broad shortcomings, involving use of data, use of best practices when it comes to routes and schedules, and use of effective performance measures to improve the program over time. And it makes four recommendations to rectify these issues, which the TSW Department has agreed to implement.


• Central Stores Inventory Review: Each year, the Auditor is required to do an audit of the City's Central Store, which stocks and stores miscellaneous goods used by City departments (think: small tools, concrete, cleaning supplies, toilet paper, fire hydrants, piping.) Departments place orders for these goods when they need them. The Auditor outsourced this audit to Macias Gini & O’Connell (MGO), which took a series of standardized approaches to seeing how well the City's electronic records sync up with what's physically at the facility. 

There were some discrepancies, and to improve, MGO made a couple of recommendations, including that the City buy handheld devices to allow storekeepers to update inventory records in real time and provide more accurate and timely information on inventory.

• Industrial Wastewater Control Program Audit: In 2013, the City Auditor investigated the Public Utilities Department's Industrial Wastewater Control Program, which permits, monitors, and inspects a variety of industries across the City to limit the discharge of toxic substances into the sewers. That investigation found billing lapses, cost-recovery problems, and some issues with outdated fees. The Auditor released a follow-up audit this past July that found that "while some progress has been made, the issues we identified in 2013 remain largely unaddressed." It also found an additional concern: "City wastewater customers alone are subsidizing program costs, even though the program serves customers in the larger metro area...."

The results of this follow-up audit were presented to the Audit Committee on July 22, and the committee asked the Auditor to return this week and provide a progress report. 

• City Auditor’s Monthly Activity Report: Self-explanatory. This item is on the agenda every month.

Only City staff and credentialed members of the press may attend the meeting in person. However, anyone can participate and make comments by dialing 619-541-6310 and entering the access code 877861 followed by # when the item you're interested in comes up (full call-in instructions). Watch the meeting on cable TV channel 24 or AT&T channel 99, or stream it online.

Next up will be a post on the meeting of the full City Council scheduled for Oct. 6.

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