Report Summary
Financial-Related Audit
Office of Administrative Hearings
July 1, 1995, through June 30, 2000
Key Findings and Recommendations:
- In some cases, the Office of Administrative Hearings (office) did not appropriately allocate costs between its various funding sources. The office's two main sources of funding are the Workers' Compensation Special Compensation Fund and the Administrative Hearings Fund. We found several instances where the office did not charge expenditures to the appropriate funding source. The office should correct any allocation errors between the two funding sources and cancel the resulting prior year balances, as appropriate. The office should charge the payroll and business expense reimbursement expenditures to the appropriate funding source based on actual activity and consistently charge recurring expenditures to the appropriate funding source, or document reasons that justify deviations from normal funding sources.
- The office did not adequately segregate duties related to processing payroll and to collecting, depositing, and recording administrative law fees. The office should segregate duties relating to these functions, or establish mitigating controls, such as an independent review of the employee's work.
- The office did not comply with the state's special expense policy when making certain food and supply purchases. The office should update its special expense plan and procedures and submit it to the Department of Employee Relations for approval. The office should implement a process to ensure it complies with the state's special expense policy.
Background:
The Legislature established the Office of Administrative Hearings in 1976 to provide a fair, prompt, and impartial hearing process for citizens who disagree with actions taken by government. The office consists of two separate divisions: the Administrative Law Division and the Workers' Compensation Division. The Administrative Law Division hears state agency Administrative Procedure Act cases, rulemaking cases, and local government licensing and personnel cases. The Workers' Compensation Division conducts workers' compensation settlement conferences and hears workers' compensation benefit cases.