Reports

Our audit objective was to answer the following questions: (1) What is Kansas’ process for distributing COVID relief funding?; and (2) Have Kansas’ distributions of COVID relief funding been appropriate? The scope of our work included examining the distribution process for CARES Act and American Rescue Plan Act funding. Additionally, we evaluated a sample of CARES Act expenditures made in 42 Kansas counties.

Our audit objective was to answer the question: what entities received Connectivity Emergency Response Grants and where were they located? We found that the Kansas Department of Commerce (Commerce) awarded $48.5 million in Connectivity Emergency Response Grant funds through 66 grants to all seven regions in Kansas with the largest amounts going to South Central, Southwest, and Northeast Kansas. We also found that Commerce denied some applications through its review process.

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented significant challenges to Multnomah County. We conducted this audit to support transparent and accountable government operations during this unprecedented time. This report details what the county spent pandemic funding on, which provider organizations received pandemic funding from the county, and whether funds were distributed in alignment with the county’s stated commitment to leading with race. In this audit, we found that county management sought to balance the need to get resources out to the community quickly with also maintaining effective policies...

The Auditor’s Office follows up on audit recommendations to support county government’s accountability. The county implemented most of the Auditor’s recommendations from the first audit report on the county’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. However. the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office did not implement our recommendation to expand the use of free-phone calls or modify lobby video visit operations to allow for safe use. Also, for Library locations, the county did not implement our recommendation to add COVID-19 specific cleaning and disinfecting requirements into its contracts with...

This audit report assessed what factors caused delays in the Kansas Department of Labor’s unemployment claims processing during the COVID-19 pandemic? To answer this question, we spoke with officials from the Kansas Department of Labor (KDOL) and reviewed KDOL staffing, incident, and call center reports. This audit also includes an updated unemployment insurance fraud estimate. In February 2021 we released the first part of this audit. In that audit we reported a preliminary estimate of how much fraud could have occurred in Kansas in 2020. In this report, we used KDOL claims data from January...

This report summarizes the results of the Survey of Employee Experiences During the Pandemic, issued by the Auditor’s Office in September 2020. Responses overall were generally positive. However, in analyzing the data and reading over 8,000 written comments, it is clear that employees have had very different experiences.

Representative John Barker requested this limited-scope audit, which was authorized by the Legislative Post Audit Committee at its February 24, 2021 meeting. Our audit objective was to answer the following question: How did causes of death during the COVID-19 pandemic compare to those before the pandemic? To answer this question, we reviewed death record data from 2019 and 2020 for the last third of each year (September 1 – December 31).

We conducted this audit to support transparent and accountable government operations during this unprecedented time. We focused our work on determining steps the county took to ensure that vital services could continue safely and equitably during the pandemic; whether those steps were in line with guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health authorities to reduce health risks; and what improvements can be made moving forward.

This audit attempts to answer the following question. What types of unemployment claims fraud schemes is the Kansas Department of Labor aware of and how are they being addressed?

Part of our hotline work is educating county employees about fraud red flags. As an extension of that service, we are sharing tips to help community members stay safe online during the coronavirus pandemic.