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Recommendation

Management Response

Est Comp  Date

Status Updates

(In Progress; Pending; Complete;

Requires Resolution)

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The subsidy applications should be reviewed by the facility manager and initialled indicating approval.
b) A report should be made available from CLASS of subsidies set up in the past month for the facility manager to review a sample of the back up.
c) Clarification of subsidy application supporting documentation requirements to be retained in a client's subsidy application file should be given to satellite locations.
d) All subsidy application feels from the prior year should be sent to the business analyst, in January of each year, and for their review of a sample from each location to determine whether they are consistently following City policy.

a) Management disagrees with the recommendation.
If a facility manager was the only individual authorized, as suggested in the recommendation, this would force the applicant to come only when a facility manager is on duty. Many facilities do not have a manager or supervisor on-site at the facility thus making it impossible to implement this recommendation without creating additional manager and/or supervisor positions. The current Fee Assistance Application Form already has a requirement for authorized staff signature (facility manager, facility supervisor or their designate) to indicate approval of the fee assistance for the client. Even if the facility manager were to review and potentially approve the applications weekly this could penalize individuals requiring fee assistance. The Pay Before You Play Policy requires payment before you register. Typically the fee assistance approval is at the time of registration when the client is on site. Having the application approved by the manager responsible at a later date could force the client to have to return to the facility and potentially lose their spot in the program. This would, result in a reduction in customer service level as managers are not on site during all hours of operations and lower income individuals may have diminished access to programming.

b) Management agrees with the recommendation.
The Fee Assistance Policy will be amended to include a monthly review of the report, which will be communicated to facility managers.
The Business and Client Services Division is targeting an implementation date of Q3 2008.

c) Management agrees with the recommendation.
The Fee Assistance Policy currently indicates that the facility supervisor or designate must check the appropriate box to indicate
which supporting documentation has been seen and reviewed by him/her. Adjustments will be made to the policy to Chapter 4b: Audit of Parks and Recreation Financial Management and Revenue Processes indicate which copies of this documentation do not need
 to be kept on site. The Client Services Division is targeting an implementation date of Q3 2008.

d) Management agrees with the recommendation.
No action is required as this procedure is already in place and is performed by the business analyst in the Business and Client Services Division. In order to ensure that files are being sent consistently to the business analyst a communiqué will be circulated to all locations reminding them of the process. This will be completed in Q2 2008.

Q3 2008

December 2009:  In Progress.

3 a) A meeting took place on July 29, 2009 between Dan Presse of the AG’s office, and Aaron Burry and Maria Jones of the Parks, Recreation, and Culture Department to review the disagree briefing notes for the Parks and Recreation Financial Audit.  At this meeting, changes to the Briefing Notes were discussed and the AG’s office indicated agreement with the revised version of the briefing notes.

 

A procedure will be added to the Fee Assistance Policy, during Q1 2010, indicating that the facility supervisor must review and initial Fee Assistance application forms that were approved by another full-time staff in his/her absence.

 

June 2009:  3a) For resolution/discussion at an upcoming meeting between Aaron Burry and Dan Presse.


3b), c), d) Complete

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29

Cash drawers should be:
a) Kept locked; and,
b) Assigned to a specific individual.

a) Management agrees with part of the recommendation. Management agrees that cash drawers should be kept locked. This response was developed in conjunction with Financial Services. A communiqué will be sent to all staff reinforcing instructions in the Cash Handling Manual of keeping cash drawers locked by Q2 2008.

b) Management does not agree to support dedicated cash drawers. In order to ensure that financial controls are in place, staff log in and out of the CLASS application with their own dedicated user identification and password ensuring that all transaction are coded to each individual “cash handler” for that shift. The contents of the cash drawer are then balanced at the end of each cash handlers shift ensuring singular accountability to that individual. Where there are several cash handlers within a facility during a given day, the Facility supervisor conducts another balance at the end of the day. However they do share the cash drawer. If each person were to have their own drawer insert while multiple individuals were on duty at the same time this could potentially require that the clerk going to the front counter to deal with a customer would have to go with the clerk who currently has their cash drawer in the system, have them pull it out and secure it, and the new clerk put their cash drawer in prior to completing the transaction, which would impact customer service levels. In addition, many of our facilities were built in the 1960’s and the 1970’s and would require extensive front counter renovations to accommodate additional cash drawers, network connectivity and point of sale workstations. Each site is unique and it may not be feasible to make modifications at all locations. Management believes that this recommendation could be cost prohibitive, but will investigate the feasibility of the recommendation and identify associated budget pressures as part of the 2009 budget process.

Q2 2008

January 2010: In Progress.

The funds were not approved to purchase the additional cash drawers; therefore the department will support the recommendation as existing front counters are retrofitted and as new facilities are built (as per the management response).

 

December 2009:

29b) A meeting took place on July 29, 2009 between Dan Presse of the AG’s office, and Aaron Burry and Maria Jones of the Parks, Recreation, and Culture Department to review the disagree briefing notes for the Parks and Recreation Financial Audit.  At this meeting, changes to the Briefing Notes were discussed and the AG’s office indicated agreement with the revised version of the briefing notes.

 

With respect to this recommendation the resolution agreed to was that for the 2010 budget, a pressure was added for $11,000 to purchase two additional cash drawers with locking covers, per facility.  Should the budget pressure be approved, each customer service station would be provided with two drawers so that the drawers could be exchanged as new staff come on duty.  If the budget pressure is not approved, management agrees to support the recommendation as existing front counters are retrofitted and as new facilities are built.

 

June 2009:

29 a) Complete.

29 b) For resolution/discussion at an upcoming meeting between Aaron Burry and Dan Presse.
 

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An audit report should be developed that reports on transactions done by CLASS Support Technical Computer Analysts and the Manager CLASS Support should review this report weekly.

Management disagrees with the recommendation.
Any transaction anomalies will show up on the existing quarterly financial reports, which are reviewed by the FSU and the Parks and Recreation management team. The number of financial transactions handled by the CLASS support technical computer advisors is minimal and management feels the level of risk is well contained. System administrators, including IT professionals, have system and configuration permissions over and above normal end users. The number of reports required to monitor these permissions would be cost prohibitive to manage what management believes to be a low level risk.

 

December 2009:  In Progress.

A meeting took place on July 29, 2009 between Dan Presse of the AG’s office, and Aaron Burry and Maria Jones of the Parks, Recreation, and Culture Department to review the disagree briefing notes for the Parks and Recreation Financial Audit.  At this meeting, changes to the Briefing Notes were discussed and the AG’s office indicated agreement with the revised version of the briefing notes.

 

With respect to this recommendation the resolution agreed to was that PRC will add the following to the CLASS (P&R) and BAM (IT) Teams’ work plans for 2009: To perform a formal review of all permissions for the system administrator group and identify impacts on CLASS support, FSU capacities and customer service levels if any changes were to be made to these permissions. 

 

This work was not completed in 2009, therefore in 2010, following the CLASS upgrade to version 7.0, CLASS Support and BAM staff will initiate the review of the permissions for the system administrator group. 

 

 

June 2009: For resolution/discussion at an upcoming meeting between Aaron Burry and Dan Presse.

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The credit card number and related client name should be stored on separate physical disk drives in separate locations and access to these drives should be restricted and monitored.

Management agrees with the recommendation.
Currently the client's name and credit card information are stored on the same drive, but the access is restricted to the CLASS Support Team and FSU. In order to implement this recommendation, additional hardware (drives) will need to be purchased to ensure that the credit card numbers and clients’ names can be stored in separate locations. Associated operating pressures will be determined and identified as part of the 2009 budget process. Implementation of this recommendation is subject to Council approval of budget requirements. The Business and Client Services Division are targeting an implementation date of Q4, 2009.

Q4 2009

December 2009:  In Progress. 

A meeting took place on July 29, 2009 between Dan Presse of the AG’s office, and Aaron Burry and Maria Jones of the Parks and Recreation, and Culture Department to review the disagree briefing notes for the Parks, Recreation Financial Audit.  At this meeting, changes to the Briefing Notes were discussed and the AG’s office indicated agreement with the revised version of the briefing notes.

 

Although this recommendation was agreed to, through discussions with both IT and Active Networks, PRC found that there is a PCI Compliance project underway with IT that is directly related to this recommendation. The City of Ottawa will be working on the PCI Compliance Project until March of 2011.

 

June 2009: For resolution/discussion at an upcoming meeting between Aaron Burry and Dan Presse.