2021-01-13 PPS School Board Audit Committee Meeting

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District Portland Public Schools
Date 2021-01-13
Time 16:30:00
Venue Virtual/Online
Meeting Type committee
Directors Present missing
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Event 1: PPS Board of Education's Audit Committee Meeting - 1/13/2021

00h 00m 00s
i'm gonna start with the inner introductions and [Music] um i'm about to start let's start with the committee members and then um the primary staff so i'm julia broome edwards chair of the committee scott scott bailey board member and committee member kate hi kate wilkinson a public member i'm parker myers district student council representative green and the staff here bradshaw executive assistant to the board mary catherine moore internal performance auditor dennis hanson internal performance auditor claire hertz deputy superintendent roseanne david oh sorry i was moving roseanne pell board manager and it looks like i've uh entered the um sorry about this i'm not used to it working this way uh emily courtney's director of purchasing and contracting hi everyone david roy senior director of communications for the district mary kay seeing your legal counsel [Music] great uh welcome everybody um i think first kara do we just second plan on time wise do we have any public buddy sign up for holy comment we do not okay so we'll shoot for uh at least a ten minute early adjournment to make up for last night a little bit if we can so the very first thing i want to make sure is that the committee members received the informal minutes in the last meeting is there any changes or questions about them everybody okay yep okay and thank you kara for doing doing those i think they're a great uh historical capture of uh what happened at the meeting and appreciate you putting those together uh the next item on the the agenda were is the activity status update from the office of the internal performance auditors i'm going to turn over to janice hanson i can't hear you okay so i shared my screen and i just opened the document that's in board books so i can walk you through it um first the ach audit report will be going over today and the audit committee um the next audit is the p-card audit field work is underway and we anticipate the audit report will be ready to present to the audit committee in the april meeting the next audit will be the student body activity fund audit under the pcard audit for the april um committee that includes time for the staff to review and respond okay um the student body activity funds audit is our next audit and we're planning to get started on that in mid-february and the hardship transfer audit got approved last night late in the evening um at by the board so that is now officially been approved so it is on our list um and then the last one is the health and safety checks audit again this one is only going to be done if students begin to attend in-person classes during the school year sounds like there's some progress towards that based off discussion last night in the board meeting so if we are able to do so we'd be happy to do those checks if that ends up being the case just a question about that um
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and this is a i think a question both for the auditors and for um the deputy superintendent of business and operations um if we have a limited in-person instruction would that be a case where we would do these health and safety checks just as a sort of dipstick um into our processes and procedures or would we wait until there's a broader um reopening so lippy will be a smaller number of students it's certainly a time that we could do a test run um so that we could learn from uh but if you're really wanting to have a full systems test it's really when we get to the hybrid so there's re there's reasons for doing it either way so i think that we could just touch base again and a couple as we move forward with the process and we can make a decision as to um whether or not there's a one you know a want to do the check-in um related to limited in-person activity which we would be happy to do it um or ends up wanting to wait until the full hybrid model totally fine either way is we'd be happy to do these check-ins just to make sure that the district is following the protocols that they have established so just a reminder we will not be taking into consideration or giving an opinion as to the um adequacy of the plan or we're just looking for compliance with the plan that's already been approved by a variety of people so it's just that compliance piece not whether or not the plan is adequate right that's a good clarification um so my preference uh and i'd be interested in director bailey's as well is that if we have limited um in-person instruction that we have some spot checks i think to sort of practice the what that test run might look like um but also um i think to sort of build some confidence in to the systems for our staff i know director bailey if you have a yeah absolutely feel the same way awesome what i will do is reach out to district administration to gain a better understanding of when that limited in person is going to take place and i will send the audit committee and up an email once i've had that meeting to give you an idea of when you could anticipate that we will do a spot check so right now it's the health metrics that are keeping us from doing that and but we do know that the updated metrics are coming from the state so it certainly it won't be time now because we haven't started but we're hoping that it will come soon which is very exciting news for a lot of people yes that and the vaccine yeah anything else on this update that's it okay um so the next agenda item is one of the audits that was approved by the um by the audit committee and eventually and by the board um and janice and mary catherine in your setup just provide briefly the background of why we we had this audit and your methodology and kind of walk us and walk us through at a high level the report and then what i think i'll ask committee members um go ahead and ask clarifying questions during the presentation if they're clarifying um but let's get to sort of some of the bigger questions any sort of any discussion after the presentation um julia do you want to do the budget discussion first and move forward to the ach audit report okay this can you pull up the budget yes this is this should be a pretty routine item and uh so the auditors the internal performance auditors because they report to the board are part of the board office budget
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we essentially have a hold steady budget there is a slight increase for two reasons one um there is a multiplier that's been put into that that is came from the district budget office is that correct yes which is consistent with um claire please um provide different clarification if this isn't accurate that's uh reflects what other departments are doing as well and then also obviously this was a very unique year in which there was no travel and just um a variety of budget categories had a lesser amount of spend because of the pandemic and so next year essentially would be um we anticipate it'll be similar to this year in terms of the work but that it actually there will be some in person in place work that will have some just regular budget spend that we didn't have this year so it's a it's a a modest increase just to reflect those two things but no expanded scope or no expanded spend excellent do you want to i guess the one thing just share the um [Music] the fees and the organizations that you all belong to as part of your professional your ongoing professional development sure so we are mary katherine and i are both members of the iia um institution of internal auditors the alga which is the association of local government auditors and we are just adding a cfe membership um to in the next couple of days mary katherine will get that going um we it is she's going to start working on getting a cfe uh certification so we would like to be members of that association cfe is for certified fraud investigator right thanks yes um any questions by any of the committee members um i just wonder um in a budget cut year it i mean there's not a huge amount spent on travel but um i'd view that view that cautiously um because that's that's one of the things that typically goes off the top yeah absolutely well noted is that for the standard amount you had in for conference attend attendance yeah that's and that's kind of i based the estimation for the travel based off mary katherine and i both attending a conference of some sort the good news is the alga conference is virtual this year and so they are going to be putting out their agenda for the conference in february so next month and so we will not need to use any travel to attend that conference so that's very exciting i i really enjoy those conferences we learned so much i think we invited you guys um last time there was an algae conference here in portland and i know that director berm edwards actually came on a couple of vacate to a couple of those meetings and it's just really awesome to network with other internal auditors and external auditors also but um so we're really looking forward to that and it doesn't have any travel associated with it so i just tried to be consistent but i don't anticipate we'll have any out of district travel since we are able to get that conference in virtually also one of the really great things that we have this going for us this year to help minimize cost is since i did pass the last via test i actually they give you all of the professional development cpe you they give you 80 hours so that will cover me for the professional development cpe requirements that's required for a cia certification and so i really have the opportunity to be very nitpicky about what training and webinars and stuff that i try to attend because i don't need the cpe so i really won't have the
00h 15m 00s
opportunity to be very picky about which things i we can attend that will add value to the work that we're doing instead of just taking something because we need the credits and also mary catherine is well on her way to achieving the cpe requirements as well so we don't anticipate it but it's just really hard to not budget for it just in case okay we will i think as we watch what's happening with the budget and what's happening with the rest of the a district staff and travel um just be cognizant of um that is um that would be the first place we would go if we're gonna anything any anything else so i do want to mention in the budget process um there is a reduction um occurring and so i will work with the committee chair and the um janus to confer about um that process so so that there is some um it's something right now that's at a very um senior leadership team level but because this budget is managed by the internal auditor and the um board you know the audit committee chair i think that it would make sense to include you in any kind of conversation that we need to have so you're apprised of of what is occurring great appreciate that any other questions from committee members great um jess i would just make sure that roseanne has that as she's also has visibility to the board office budget um let's see um okay the next agenda item is a audit on this year's audit calendar awesome okay so i would like to just go over the ach audit report and i would like to start with a huge congratulations to the finance department there are no findings or recommendations included in the audit report which is awesome so just wanted to start there um next i would draw your attention to page five and the background information right here so just a high level overview of what the ach what is ach so basically it's the automated clearing house network it's an electronic funds transfer process between bank accounts and it essentially acts as a financial hub to help people and organizations move money from one bank to another and it consists of direct deposits as well as direct payments the district utilizes the ach network to process approximately 269 million and 300 353 million in payments over the 1819 and 1920 fiscal years respectively um so back in august of 2019 the district experienced a fraudulent transaction attempt through the ach payment method luckily due to the fast-acting work of our partners at our banking institution we were able to recover all the funds and so that is really great news as a result of the fraudulent attempt the district took quite a few actions i listed some of them there that were done by the finance department um but the full memo of the action summary of actions that the district took is in the appendix additionally in addition to all those actions that the district took deputy superintendent claire hertz requested our office performed the ach payment method audit it was reviewed by the audit committee and approved by the board so the next thing that i wanted to bring to your attention is on page five and it is the last paragraph right here that has the audit objective the audit objective of the ach payment
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method audit was to determine whether internal controls over the district's ach payment process follow best practice and design and are working effectively and efficiently to mitigate potential fraud and safeguard district funds so unlike other audits this was a very narrow scoped audit which i love to do and just really straightforward of internal controls related to this ach payment method the next section that i would like to draw your attention to is on page three um like this third to the bottom paragraph i'm not sure if you guys are following along on your own screen or looking at mine but this one the third to the bottom paragraph on page three i just want to go over this it's a little bit complicated but due to the fraudulent transaction attempt the district suspended enrolling new vendors in the ach payment program the district also suspended making changes in the vendor payment account information that participate in the ach payment program and if there was a change to the vendor's account information then what the district did is just removed that vendor from the ach payment program and has made subsequent payments to that vendor via check until further notice as of the end of our field work around november of this 2020 it's not this year anymore it's last year um the district had not restarted the ach payment program as of then as a result we were able to review the internal controls related to setting up new vendors to the ach program and also the internal controls and processes and procedures related to changing account information for those who are already enrolled however we weren't able to test those controls because the district has not resumed that process at the time of our field work i did talk to [Music] hadamini yesterday with the finance department and also with claire and they did let me know that they have subsequently started the process back and they anticipate they will be ready um they'll be sufficient transactions for us to actually test by april or may so stay tuned really excited about that the next item that i wanted to bring your attention to is actually on page six yes can i uh just clarify just to make sure so because of the two changes i shall make sure if you were a new vendor with the district you say you got a new contract subsequent to um that fraudulent transaction attempt if you were a new vendor you just automatically got a check is that correct yes and then second if you were a current vendor that was getting ach payments but say you changed your bank or something else you no longer got ach wires you're getting a check yes and and in theory when all the controls are in place and we go back to our past practice new vendors and vendors that have changes in their you know in their their terms or any part of their transaction they would go back to ach payments as well yeah and we're actually then the last sort of clarifying question so um this is a question for claire so are both new transactions and change vendor um [Music] payments are they both now being going uh switching to ach payments so what we're doing is we are now implementing um the system so that we can circle back to those that have been turned off that changed accounts so we can get them restarted and we're starting as people are requesting we're adding them into the system and eventually we'll broadcast it more but we're um starting you know we're doing it in stair steps if you were someone last year who was new who were paint being paid at the check you're not now going to get an ach audit unless you were in
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sort of the first tranche of restarts i don't know that we've put that much um we haven't put that much rules into it it's more right now we're making sure that those that are requesting it are are getting it and that's where we're starting and and we will you know continue to add and grow that back to our normal process so there it's like stair steps along the way and it's not where we're making rules about it we're just not staying we're not putting out a big notification to all of our vendors saying come on down because we really want to be thoughtful about how we're contacting and confirming our vendors okay so the next item that i wanted to draw your attention to is on the bottom of page six and it's the conclusion so based on the results of the audit overall we found the district's internal controls over ach payment follow best practice and design and appear to be working efficiently and effectively to mitigate potential fraud and safeguard district funds the testing of the district's internal controls for setting up new vendors and ached payment program to the ach payment program and updating ach payment information was not completed when the district has resumed this process for setting up new vendors and updating those ach payment information we will test those internal controls and issue an updated report um again based off of the conversation yesterday it sounds like that time period will be april may and when we do it's very very limited we've already reviewed their processes and procedures what they said they're going to do in relationship to these activities and that is designed well and follows best practice so the only thing we'll need to do is just test some transactions to confirm that they did follow those the identified process and procedures that we have already looked at um so it won't be a significant touch back but it is important that we do follow up and test those last two pieces of their processes and procedures it was also important to go ahead and issue the audit report now um so the content in the audit report doesn't get stale so it's not a big deal to issue an update if but we just wanted to get this out because we're really done with it other than just those two testing um i do have a couple of other notes just well let me end by again congratulating the finance department and thanking them for working with us you know they also while we were doing this audit they also had the financial statement audit going on at the same time and so bless them for dealing with quite a few auditors around the same time and we just really appreciate working with them they are awesome um a couple of other notable things i just wanted to mention um when i was talking to director bailey earlier today about the report he asked me a question about how many transactions were ach and so i did have an opportunity to look those up look it up before hand and so what he what we were chatting about is where in here in the report where i said the dollar amount he was wondering how many transactions that equated to so for the 1819 year it was approximately eleven 943 transactions and then for the 1920 it was approximately 10 661 transactions um also i wanted to just mention that this report is intentionally light on details um it is really important that we don't put too much information about our exact processes and procedures in the audit report just in case there are some bad actors that want to gain a better understanding of our processes and procedures so they can better work the system to you know commit some sort of fraudulent attempt so that is why you have a very brief audit report specifically in relationship to some of the testing that we did
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but so just fyi it's intentionally light on a lot of this very specifics and the last thing i wanted to mention is um in discussions with claire yesterday we kind of talked about potentially removing the district's um bank from my report i did say who the district banks with in this report but just to kind of make sure that we're not giving away any hints i probably will go back and edit the name of the bank and change it to financial institution and that way it's just safeguarding and all the ways we can possibly think of to help prevent anybody from getting information that would help them do some sort of fraud okay well that's everything that i wanted to go over with you guys are there any questions kate or scott no not for me i i had looked at this and asked a question yesterday and i'm good jackson parker no we we also had a had a conversation about this so all my questions have already been uh taken care of disappointed i thought you'd find something and we'd end up seeing claire marched out in handcuffs but there you go no no yachts no no new uh sports cars no but we have the p-card that's going and we're looking for sports cars just in case specifically jackson do you have any questions was that a head nod sorry i missed it no i'm good thank you okay um i had a couple um and they relate to that thank you for the audit and uh congratulations to the staff i'm glad we've got a strong set of procedures in place uh i am interested in a better understanding and if it's sensitive information we could take it offline but a better understanding of when we will we expect to be fully um back into the stepping in or the stair steps when we'll be fully back into it um just so i can make a note for when we sort of we close out the audit so we spoke yesterday as a as a team a finance team with the exit interview and um did did determine that um we would have enough transactions going through for janus to return in april or may to closing audit so i don't know if that's um what you're looking for um it's i guess it's part of what i'm looking for because that sounds like um there would be a valid representation but i also would be interested when the district will have fully transit um we'll depend on the vendors we're going to go through a process with them and they'll have to um do a registration with us in in confirming information and so we'll go through that process so in terms of how long that takes i can't i don't have enough um right now to know um you know average response time you know so it'll be up you know the we'll work with vendors um following the procedure and our goal is to really uh when you have a solid ach procedure um and it does um checks in the mail are not always a better way to transfer funds so um in terms of ach it is really we implement that in order to avoid fraud um to avoid up fraud and to prevent it so um it would be our our practice is to uh utilize it to its fullest so that we are have fewer checks um floating around in the mailbox okay um i guess i'll just put a note in april and may to just check back in on so where we are overall uh it sounds like we'll have a valid sample but um i want to get a sense of where we are with just because at this point in time while it sounds just recently we reinstituted after a year of uh not doing the payments because uh we can have good processes and we now just to make sure that we run transactions
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through that they um are validated but they're working the other question i had and this is another item that i'm happy to get um offline but um there was a memo to both to the audit committee of august of 2019 and also a message that went out to the staff and school communities that referenced three investigations and i'd like to and again i'm not requesting it for at this meeting but i'd like to get um i don't think we ever got to circle back on the uh results of the investigation so would like to request request that um and that is all the questions i have any anything else i i just want to say one more thing when i was doing mary katherine and i were both doing research on this topic one of the things that we found is a fraud associated with ach has become a big thing nowadays and so um even though a lot of entities are experiencing fraudulent transactions what we found is the data is still very clear that ach transactions are far more secure um and with less potential for fraud than the actual paper checks and mailing them there's a lot more opportunities with checks to commit some sort of fraudulent activity so even though we have experienced this issue it's still by far more secure than the check process and so resuming the practice and getting back to making the payments i think is awesome and hopefully will help safeguard funds our district funds over the long term thanks um claire or emily or mary kane do you have anything you want to add or share with the committee i just want to thank um the audit committee and as well as our um internal auditors for um doing this on it on on my request it gives us uh some um peace of mind that what we've put in place is um especially as we're really turning it back on and ratcheting it back up that we're in good order as we roll it out so thank you appreciate the service emily or mary kane okay thank you claire anything else on this item okay um great thank you to the auditors for uh that service uh [Music] much appreciated it um just in terms of uh guarding the taxpayers resources that um go right into the classroom the next item on our agenda is uh the recap of the 1920 performance evaluation process for the performance auditor and then the 2021 template i i wish michelle uh director to password here because i'd be able to thank her for really taking the lead um in this process uh given that this was a new position and um a in need of a new process michelle raised her hand and offered to lead the process and i think she had a really solid evidence-based um evaluation process that she ran that uh was inclusive and um it is it's been completed and it's been shared with the rest of the board uh for the uh for kate and the students uh because uh the auditor uh reports to the board we had just with the board versus um with like student community members um but i want to just uh again i want to give credit to director depass for doing a really great job this year that sets us up i think very easily for well that was for 1920 but also for 2021 so um janice already has uh 20 20 21 goals in the template so we have an established template now and there's
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20 21 goals in them so we're into a very uh regular process of setting goals and then evaluating them and as everybody remembers last meeting we had a discussion about general goals for the the office of the internal performance auditor um so hopefully we'll start getting a set of data that is useful just in terms of um sort of performance management and um sort of setting expectations and goals for for the office any um we i distributed to the board members on the committee the template for um the so i guess scott you'd be the only percent just any questions you have about the template or no it seemed pretty straightforward um and i really appreciate it michelle's work on that anybody else janice um anything to add no i also just want to say thank you to director to pass i really appreciate how much time she took to spend with me to really go over each of the key responsibilities and what does that mean and how it is i fulfilled them and i just really appreciate that type of attention it was really meaningful and so i really appreciate that and and also she's so supportive in reference to setting goals and um i just really it's it's not always an opportunity um that's not always the case in performance evaluation situations so i just really wanted to thank her for all the time she spent with me to get it completed great and um unless she objects i'm going to ask her to lead the process again and director bailey as a committee member you'll be consulted early in the process and um actively be asked to participate in it as well so while michelle um as she did this year would take the lead all the committee members are active participants in the process so what's what's our date for producing or evaluating when we actually do the evaluation yeah so that's a great question um given last year was really a startup cycle um we janice and i spoke the other day that we are going to shoot for a um working through the um evidence and the draft evaluation um in uh late may early june so that we can so that this this committee because we obviously we could have changes that um this committee completes this school year's evaluation okay um i'm thinking might be a good idea since we're using a new instrument for the three of us to kind of do an initial uh go through it put together some some evidence of where we are right now just to get us on sort of calibrate it before um doing the final at the end of the year yeah so the the um one complication we have is um that maybe that you and michelle would do that because if we had three people do it we'd have a quorum of the committee um which because we have five positions or four um commissions we can we can have two people work on it we just can't have um a majority of the committee working on it which would be the three board members so um but i would be more than happy i think that's a great idea um and i can do it or i'm happy to have you and michelle like do the first draft of the evidence um and or i forget this is a hybrid committee with public members um [Music] i don't know also committee members so we can i we can't have non-board members evaluating uh yeah that's what i'm saying so that we kind of went through this all over the last um two months the the best way to do it is maximum two board members um and again i i'm happy to defer to if you're interested in the process at least this first draft um because every but all three of us will have an opportunity
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to fully participate but i think that's a great idea and um you know if you want to reach out to uh to michelle scott yeah both supportive and i know james is already here that template with him so he'll have access to it the one that i that i shared a google doc so if he had if i add him to that he'll have the opportunity to really dive in on it and make notes if that's what you know to help him with that process later so i will do that for you director bailey thank you great um the next item on our agenda is the status of the contract audit the implementation of recommendations uh this was a the first audit that uh done by the office of internal performance auditors the audit was delivered to the committee and the board and an implementation plan and template was put together and with that i'm going to claire would you like to um just walk us through this portion of the meeting or sure happy to happy to do that and so i've i've brought emily cordenage with me as and she has made the most progress on the contract's um audit implementation the um implementation plan and so um you'll see in your packet um the update and you can see that the we did get responses from two of the four areas in the district um and um the third is mary kane from little and she's here to speak on the training implementation so um can we just um take a moment so that all of us can get this on the screen because i did try and print it out the font was so small i um i couldn't see it so i'm going to have to pull it up do others have access to it yeah i've got it but uh again i can't look at the whole page at once um it's that's just an ongoing challenge with the um this is a real handy way to um you know represent a framework um unless you're trying to read it would it be helpful if i shared my screen and i just in um now because with my bad eyes you you'd have to have a huge font size and then we'd see three letters at a time so as you're bringing it up um most of the content of the document you saw in your october meeting this was something that we submitted to the audit committee and what you'll see is all the way to the right is where um you can note where things were completed you'll see a darker green for when it's completed and in progress it's kind of a lighter green but um but there's also some that we um we don't have it in the report i can say that uh our the winter break caught us um we weren't uh we didn't get out noticed quick enough to our apartment so in all fairness um it is our lack of planning over winter break um to make sure everyone was aware that this report was due for this audit committee so i will fully own that and we have that scheduled out for the rest of the year so we won't have that problem in the future um but the so we do have um from the purchasing department the responses are in the document you can also see a column that has the date it was completed when it says completed and you'll see um that emily's work um emily courtney our director of purchasing is um certainly um on the spot getting things done and then um getting things in a really good order so she's to be commended for the progress on the implementation um plan of the audit the um resj component also has made the progress as anticipated there were some things when you look in the notes you'll see that things were had dates when they were hoping to accomplish them and you can see the progress on that as well in the one area that we haven't gotten back information back yet is in the instructional area and uh right now with um working on um rem opening schools and our short notice of time frame um we'll make sure that we give an update to this committee on
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their progress at a later date so with that i wonder if if you guys have the items if you have the report open if we might start with emily giving an update on on her progress and on the implementation of the implementation plan for the audit contracts audit um i've got my home as everybody else have access to it um so i would just ask um if you'd be really explicit where you are um like line four whatever so that we can sort of visually try and uh keep up with you just the challenge of uh the virtual environment and a large kind of unwieldy and really document um would be helpful thanks emily sure so um the first few lines are ones that we had already completed when we last spoke it spoke in october having to do with the contract training so i'm not going to dwell on those because we had completed them back in july and talked about that in october so again can you just use the numbers so yeah so that's recommendations one two and three good um let me scroll down to my next one is free a um that's also completed that was relates to that contractor training course uh completed last july and then in 3b and 3c and 3d i have uh three recommendations that are on target and the reason they're not completed is these all depend on the full implementation and training on our new contract management software cobblestone which is a proceeding on pace and we still think we will have these completed by march 31st as we originally stated um we have had some challenges in the peoplesoft to cobblestone uh integration process and we've had some very busy i.t and financial systems folks helping us out um but that but it's actually going well and we're starting our training of end users on this system um in um uh end of this month actually at the classified connections training for our uh school secretaries and other administrative staff and from there we'll schedule multiple other trainings um bring all our contract managers in the system so far we're using the system for workflow and internal processes and tracking within the finance department and particularly purchasing and contracting and we have some super users using it including those in some in the uh bond and um facilities and asset management departments so so it's going well but we need to finish the final integration pieces with peoplesoft we're bringing contract data in since 2006 so um many thousands of records and then the the the integration piece involves also bringing in all the spend data on those contracts so every single voucher paid against those contracts so it's a lot of data um bringing into one system um so this is this system and all this it covers the regular operational dollars and grant dollars and all the bond dollars so we track all the contracts no matter what the source of spend is and it'll pull from our peoplesoft financial system the spend data like where vouchers paid how much was paid out on this contract how much is left to be paid or never was paid um so that data will be all in one place that'll be that's one of the main advantages of the system is that folks couldn't go and look at their contracts um look at the contract documents which were saved separately on a different drive and then see how much they've spent on their contracts um which you would have to go to our peoplesoft system for so this integrates sort of three different systems in one place so in essence in 2017 you had another seven 790 million flow through and now with the passage of the 2020 bond there'll be another whatever 1.2 billion flow through as well so the system tracks not the dollars flowing through although it is now going to pull the spend information from our financial system which is where the
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dollars actually low um the system tracks every single contract that came out of the bond department um and every contract that comes out of anywhere any department in the district um i think i mentioned before there's about 1600 a year so um and we are bringing in as i said all those contracts we've had in the district since 2006. whether it's for 500 for the dj to yeah 150 million exactly okay a lot of zero dollars too because there's mou's and uh lots of um non-disclosure agreements those kinds of things emily did you say you were bringing everything in from 2000 starting in 2006 yes okay because that is when the district started um saving all its contracts in electronic form as well as that's when we our own tracking system um started so we were able to get all that data so i just want to um say when you think about the 1.2 billion in the bond funds not everything is run through a contract we do have staff that are part of that expense yeah i was going to do a net out but i was just trying to like just the volume increase by passing a bond again like absolutely higher yes yes yeah i will say that tracking contract volumes over the years since i've been here at pps uh we just thought we've just seen him steadily go up since 2013. emily i have uh one question it is i guess sort of specific um or i guess not of great consequence are there paper records previous to o6 no i don't believe so not anymore um i know there was a big cleanup of the warehouse a few years back with a uh led by our record manager at that time and many old old records were disposed of that the contract retention guidance is usually no more than about six years after contract end now of course that it's all electronic it's kept forever anyway yeah so there's a state of oregon archives archivists that um give us directions on how long we keep our records oh all right thanks well okay and then let's see proceeding down again on 3b is that you because we had some contracts um in august and september where there weren't um performance um goals in the in the contract how are those going to be handled in the transition so things that were approved prior to that not sure i understand the question so we had in august and september some contracts that we approved that did not have the completed performance goals in them so how um which what should won't happen in the future it sounds like um but in the meantime how do those performance goals catch up with the contracts so we would depend on um so i'm not i'm not privy to the status on those i know those are uh daniel edison's contracts that you're speaking about um if there are new goals or deliverables in those contracts she could amend them in vienna an amendment which would come through our office like any other contractor amendment for review and approval and record keeping and saving in our uh couples okay so if we're ready to keep moving downwards um i think i think i talked about the threes and um number four my response to number four also depends on completion of the cobblestone system so anywhere where i was referencing what we're doing with cobblestone and the capabilities there we uh are still on target for a march 31st
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date and then the i believe the remainder or most of the remainder of my portions um oh sorry i got ahead of myself so number four relates to the contract training course and again we've completed that in july july 1st the last year so that's complete um 4c again relates to cobblestone and we're on track for march 31st and 6 relates to the contractor training requirement and i asked mary to also attend this meeting because that's something that we've worked on at length together and i think she can best speak to current status we've had an ongoing group that has met to tackle this issue and so most of the rest of my responses in here relate to that contractor training um let me just see if i'm missing something else i mean i can skip ahead to the end and say 16 16 a um are completed and we're completed as july 1st again that's the training course so i wonder if i might ask mary to speak about um current status on the contractor training requirement and our implementation uh i'd be happy to um as emily mentioned mary i'm sorry can you follow the same practice of link whatever you're saying to what oh reference absolutely numbers i can start with five um to say that we i did prepare a memo outlining some of the challenges we had in um this final phase of uh uh creating a training protocol for contractors um but since that time um we have received and in it we were going to ask be asking direction from the full board about the um uh looking at what contractors we were talking about um and what requirements uh we would make of all of our contractors i think in the in the work that emily and i along with a number of people from different departments have uh grappled with is the sheer number of contractors who work for the district sometimes for two hours in a class you know at a school assembly as sometimes people who are even out of state who are providing contracted services to us and so um we have been trying to develop a kind of a tiered system we have much of it in place um but uh but we were we were stymied by this by by some of the contractors who have no contact with or or minimal incidental contact with students we now have direction from well we're waiting for final direction from the board in terms of uh the amendments to the professional conduct policy once that goes forward we have we have a another team meeting at the end of this month and with that information i think we can finalize the remainder of the contracting protocols so that's that is my update so i'm sorry that the professional conduct um changes are those the ones that we first read last night yes okay any questions from the community and then on that policy committee i was so glad that you guys went to them to to clarify who needed that training because it was really oblique in the policy so i'm glad that you guys did that that's really a awesome step forward in this process and with that direction we we feel confident i think emily and i feel confident we can we will have deliverables for you in very short order and in fact we've we have already included the training requirements in our very extensive uh student contact contracts already because um because it was that important and there are obviously ones where it would apply so again all of danny de la desmos contracts already have those training requirements correct and a few others that involve
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substantive and ongoing uh contact with students as i mentioned we have developed a kind of a tiered uh training requirement based on the kind of the intensity of interaction with students and so we're treating danny's portfolio as the same as staff they have the same requirements as anybody who's employed in the district and then it it kind of goes down from there so um the information you just provided that would address uh these five six um six and yes and let me go down i'm sorry and seven and we'll also address seven because part of that is how we are going to um uh within the district um assure uh uh that that all of those contractors have done the the training that we are requiring of them so that's part of it and let me see if there's any more sorry i think that's and just so we don't lose the force for the trees um for those who weren't here in 2017 year 2018 um the reason we are instituting these is uh to protect our students and to make sure that staff have been appropriately trained and to do it in a systemic uh way so that we don't have gaps in uh training for our employees and therefore we should uh we can we're better able to protect our students just say that as we're getting into the nitty-gritty of the lines and the training of like why why we're doing all of this this this uh group arose this this work began as a result of the whitehurst investigative report which recommended uh increased training protocols and so i think emily and i have been meeting along with the team since since uh late 2018 and as i said we have uh we've expanded the training um we expanded it first staff we resolved the problem with visit uh volunteers and uh and this was at and with most of our contractors there was this it's this last piece that um we had difficulty resolving and with um with the board's um approval of the changes to the conduct policy the professional conduct policy we we believe we can finalize it great any questions from committee members on that piece jackson parker scott um [Music] so there are a couple that um besides the instructional part that don't have a it's not clear what's happened clear to me if they're in process or so that's something that i'll need to still gather from the instructions and and bring back to the okay yeah but besides them um what numbers are you referencing i'm looking for example at number 14 and uh it looks like 50 15 was we're not really ready to take this on [Music] but 14 said we'll have something back to the audit committee within 60 days and i wasn't sure where that one was so these last ones that um are don't have a status um yeah report yet uh it'd be great to fill fill in and i have to say because um the font was so small and i couldn't figure out a way to print it out i have um i just will put the disclaimer that i haven't had chance to read all of it i i gave it a high level overview but um i couldn't print it out so it just had some challenges so i just want to uh
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leave the caveat that um i may come back later because i haven't had a chance to uh fully read through all this and we are scheduled to bring this back again to the audit committee we'll make sure that we give the governments enough lead time to complete their update sounds good yeah and i i love the format because like knowing like who the staff person is where it is i mean it's super helpful and i like the status um bars and the colors so um just a bigger font yeah um or i need just a bigger printer uh so that so are there any other questions or anything claire you want to add as sort of the owner of the i think i think that um there's been a lot of great work and progress done i really appreciate also the um emily's work um legals work uh dana danny ledesma's work in the uh racial equity of the social justice um contracts and with our community-based organizations and the rfp process and working with our system for performance staff to create those metrics so i mean we are really coming together um as a district in um you know in our cross-functional work um in terms of across departments and this is showing uh great improvements so thank you yeah thanks mary and thanks emily thank you so i just wanted to add that um jackson was able to review all of it each even the small print and sent me a list of questions um and it's kind of just kind of glancing through them some of them are clarification questions that i can actually follow up with him on and so i'll do that and and go through that with him and then perhaps forward along the remaining questions so you'll be prepared for next time um but i also encourage jackson to voice his questions if he wants to yeah i was just i forgot to ccu on them it was from the last time we discussed this um previously in the year so they're not any new questions and they actually like some of them actually got answered from um just this meeting and previous meeting as well great that's what that's what we'd like to have happen uh so thanks for your diligence uh jackson and parker and going through the materials um i think we've got a better product with lots of sets of eyes on it uh and the next time this this is scheduled on our overall committee work plan to come back to the committee in is it april or may okay i i if i were a betting woman it would be april but i probably need to confirm that okay we've done on our work plan so we'll come back again um but thanks to everybody for uh the work putting um that all together so um and um thank you janice and mary catherine for the original work on the audit so we're going to close out that item um then so the other business i don't have a lot just but to note that uh the secretary of state's auditors are undertaking their their review of our implementation so that's ongoing and i don't know claire if you've if you have any sort of update from a staff level um on that i haven't heard anything back from them i anticipate um a change in the boss um they're probably um adjusting to just uh shifts in leadership in the agency and that probably once the new year gets underway we'll hear more from them and then we still have an open position on the committee and um i am going to be um inspired and driven by the bacs the bond accountabilities committee work in soliciting a broader and more diverse candidate pool not that we haven't had good applicants um for this this current open position um but really to try and continue to diversify a little bit harder for this committee than it is for the bond accountability committee because uh we only have one slot um versus they had three or four and had done a great job um and getting
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kudos to um michelle for leading that work so that is um what we're gonna aspire to in order to um before we fill that position does anybody else have anything go ahead director bailey no huh literally i just had to clear my throat okay um well you could have the floor if you'd like there we go uh we don't have any public comments so i'm going to adjourn the meeting unless does anybody have anything else they'd like to add or um ask about okay if not oh go ahead parker parker okay uh just just one quick thing sorry i got up uh momentarily and ran back to my computer um i'd just like to thank uh janice she does a fantastic job uh giving me and jackson a briefing and you know getting getting clarifying questions answered uh prepping us for the meetings it's it's fantastic and uh and super helpful though thank you janice great thanks uh parker for for adding that i really appreciate um you recognizing staff getting us all prepared to be active and informed participants in the process great and so we'll adjourn at 5 50 and thank you everybody for your time today and your work on behalf of the audit committee


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