Letter Audit Report on the Follow-up Audit of the Implementation of the 18-B Web System Administered by the Department of Finance
Letter Audit Report on the Follow-up Audit of the Implementation of the 18-B Web System Administered by the Department of Finance
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The objectives of this audit were to determine whether the 17 recommendations made in an earlier audit, Audit of Controls Over Billings and Payments for Work by Panel Members in the Assigned Counsel Plan (Audit Number 7A08-085, issued February 2, 2009), were implemented and if the 18-B Web system contains adequate system controls to ensure accurate billings and payments.
The prior audit disclosed process and user control weaknesses that had not been corrected in the conversion from the legacy FoxPro system to the 18-B Web system. At the time of our original audit, the 18-B Web system and the legacy FoxPro system were the responsibility of the Office of the Criminal Justice Coordinator (CJC). The 18-B Web system is now the responsibility of the Department of Finance (DOF).
The New York City Assigned Counsel Plan (ACP) is a panel of court-approved attorneys who, among other things, provide representation to indigent persons charged with crimes in New York City and those who fall under §262 or §1120 of the New York State Family Court Act. ACP is authorized by Article 18-B of the New York State County Law and funded by New York City. It initially reported to CJC, which was responsible for managing the program. However, in a 2009 Memorandum of Understanding between the Mayor’s Office and DOF, the responsibilities for oversight for the 18-B Web system, including the payment voucher process, were transferred from CJC to DOF.
Article 18-B outlines fees for attorneys, court reporters and expert witnesses who may be used in the course of a representation. In 2003, ACP developed an in-house computer system, the 18-B Web system, to replace a legacy computer system, known as FoxPro. The 18-B Web system was designed to improve the process of assigning attorneys, streamline the payment voucher submission process and improve the system’s ability to prevent fraudulent claims from being submitted and paid.
The Comptroller’s prior audit found certain control weaknesses within both the legacy FoxPro system and the 18-B Web system. Among other things, we found that the 18-B Web system allowed attorneys to enter future activities and allowed certain mandatory data fields to remain blank. At the time of our prior audit, the FoxPro system was being integrated into the 18-B Web system. Our audit found that the 18-B Web system was not designed to allow the user to enter the specific date and time information recorded in some vouchers. These design problems identified in the prior audit were expected to be corrected when the 18-B Web system was fully implemented. Without detailed date and time information, it was not possible to determine whether attorneys overbilled or double-billed for their services.
The prior audit also found that ACP did not develop a data purification plan to ensure that only correct and corrected data was migrated into 18-B Web and did not have overall policies and procedures for the data migration of FoxPro data into the 18-B Web system. In addition, ACP did not have a formal disaster recovery plan for both systems.
Results
Our review of the implementation status of the 17 previous audit recommendations made in a prior audit determined that 12 recommendations have been fully implemented, one partially implemented, and two were not implemented at all. The remaining two recommendations are no longer applicable. Our review and tests found that the 18-B Web system has controls to detect overbillings and double billings. Based on our review and sample tests, we found that the 18-B Web system corrected internal control and user control weaknesses found in the FoxPro system. Control issues such as blank mandatory fields and the inability to record detail activities were corrected. We also confirmed that the 18-B Web system requires attorneys to fill in daily and hourly activities and will reject vouchers with future dates. In addition, the 18-B Web system enforces the ACP’s hourly business rules, identifies overlapping and over billings, and rejects vouchers from being submitted after 45 days.
The 18-B Web system has the control to identify and stop the submission of individual voucher over the maximum limit per case. However, the system control lacks the capability to identify cases with multiple vouchers with an aggregate total exceeding the amount required for a judge’s approval. In addition, we found that DOF does not have a formal disaster recovery plan for the 18-B Web system. Currently, DOF’s ACP internal audit unit only audits the top ten attorney earners. The unit should conduct an audit on all attorneys who exceeded 2,300 hours yearly.
In their written response, DOF officials did not dispute the letter report’s findings and recommendations and described the steps they have taken to implement the report’s recommendations.