Date: December 21, 2017 To: James Rovella, Chief of Police, Hartford Police Department
From: Craig S. Trujillo, CPA, Chief Auditor
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Tele: 860.757.9952 City of Hartford Police Department Private Duty Job Fee Billing and Collection Audit Report 1810 I. Executive Summary
In accordance with our audit plan for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2018, we completed an audit in December 2017 of the City of Hartford Police Department Private Duty Job Fee Billing and Collection Operations. The purpose of the audit was to evaluate and test internal accounting and operating controls, the accuracy and propriety of transactions processed, the degree of compliance with established operating policy and procedures, and to recommend improvements where required. The results of our audit were reviewed with Deputy Chief of Police, D. Rendock and the recently appointed City Interim CFO, M. McCaw for the old outstanding balances. The summary that follows includes only the exceptions disclosed and recommended operating improvements.
Included are management’s actions taken or planned including timeframes to resolve each finding and/or
recommendation in this report. We thank Police and the City Finance Department management for the cooperation and courtesies extended to us during our audit. We are pleased to report that the Police Private Duty Job Fee Billing and Collection Operations were generally found to be satisfactory. However, the XL Center owes the City over $700,000 for Police Private Duty Jobs dating back to 2016.
The Capital Regional Development Authority (“CRDA”),
a quasi-public agency of the State of Connecticut, has operational responsibility for the XL Center, which is directly managed by Spectra, a Philadelphia based American Sports and Entertainment company that manages over 400 properties in the US and Canada. These balances were found to be very problematic from a collections standpoint in the City Finance Department. Also, noted in the details which follow, some procedures and controls could be strengthened and some duties adequately segregated.
II. Background and Scope of the Audit
Businesses in the City of Hartford (City), including utility companies, entertainment venues, sponsors of special events, road maintenance firms, and the City Department of Public Works (DPW) frequently require off-duty police officers to direct traffic at a work site or provide security or other services for events. The Hartford Police Department (HPD) Private Duty Jobs (PJ) Office is responsible for working with businesses, coordinating the jobs and scheduling police officers to work. The HPD Fiscal Division is responsible for billing customers using the General Revenues Module Billing application of the Financial Management System (MUNIS). At the end of an assignment, PJ slips originally generated by the PJ Office are completed and signed by the customers and turned into the HPD Fiscal Division for payroll processing and billing. The Revenue Management Unit (RMU) of the Finance Department is responsible for the collection of outstanding unpaid customer PJ fees. RMU is also responsible for establishing PJ billing rates annually, recording customer payments in MUNIS, and referring and managing delinquent balances assigned to TaxServ LLC, the