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Minutes for SB260 - Committee on Federal and State Affairs

Short Title

Audits of state agencies; financial-compliance audits; Kansas lottery security audit; selection of auditors, contracts with.

Minutes Content for Thu, Feb 8, 2018

The hearing on SB260 was opened.

Matt Sterling, Revisor of Statutes, presented an overview on single audit. This will create the Department of Administration contract audit committee consisting of Secretary of Administration, Director of Accounts and Reports, Post Auditor, State Treasurer and Director of Budget. (Attachment 1)

Questions were asked by Senator Oletha Faust-Goudeau.

Justin Stowe, Legislative Post Audit, spoke in support of SB260. Chris Clark from Post Audit was also there as support to answer committee questions. Mr. Stowe explained that Legislative Post Audit lost their only staff person that was a CPA this past summer and that they have to contract out to have official accounting practice audits done.  He noted that House amendments have been made on the House version of the bill. Mr. Stowe explained that Legislative Post Audit negotiates the over-site of the contracts to CPA firms. Additionally, it was noted that the Lottery and KPERS needs a special CPA firm to do their audit. This bill will take the over-site from the Legislative branch to the Executive branch. The Post Audit committee has a contract audit committee that consists of five members total:  three members of the Post Audit Committee: the  Chair, the Vice-Chair and essentially what is like a ranking member, plus Secretary of Administration and  the Post Auditor. That five member committee is in charge of negotiating currently all these contracts.  He noted that under the new organization the committee will change to:  Secretary of Administration, Director of Accounts and Reports, Post Auditor, Division of Budget Director and State Treasurer. This committee will oversee all contracts. These audits would be done by CPA's which have their own standards, and their own license requirements.  The audits would then take place under the generally accepted government standards practices. Mr. Stowe commented that the House amendments included a change from: "invitation for bid" to "request for proposal".  They hoped this language would allow for not just the lowest bid but would address the quality of work that would be attained. He noted that the instate auditors the contracts were good for everything but perhaps the lottery security audits where someone specialized in gaming audits would be more appropriate.  (Attachment 2)

Questions and comments were made by Senators:  Bud Estes, Ty Masterson, Oletha Faust-Goudeau, Richard Hilderbrand, and Rob Olson.

The hearing on SB260 was closed.