Buncombe County's internal audit department lacked full-time employees for months
ASHEVILLE – Dan Keister’s hiring as internal audit director in the beginning of 2022 was the start of Buncombe County’s aspirations to build a bolstered oversight department. Two years later, the department has no permanent employees, derailing its watchdog efforts.
Strengthening the county’s audit committee was part of Buncombe’s effort for providing additional transparency, accountability and developing public trust in the wake of the Wanda Greene scandal, according to a September 2023 email from spokesperson Kassi Day to the Citizen Times. Greene was a longtime county manager who orchestrated a wide-ranging bribery and kickback scheme, landing her in federal prison.
By the middle of 2022, the three-employee department presented a report to the Board of Commissioners indicating that the internal audit team found 12 departments were at “high” operational risk. Based on that risk assessment, Keister planned a series of audits, some focusing on the county’s riskiest departments.
The audit department’s staff has since shrunk, according to a Feb. 5 email from Day. One employee transferred to another department in March 2023. Keister departed Buncombe County in July 2023, according to documents obtained through public records request. The final employee left for a different county department in October 2023, Day said.
Keister left Buncombe County’s internal watchdog without a leader. Commissioner Al Whitesides told the Citizen Times Feb. 5 that Keister never moved to Asheville.
"He never moved to Asheville. That’s the missing link. We gave him six months to move and then he didn’t. He said he had other family problems,” Whitesides said. “He ended up taking a job back in Charlotte where he started from. In that area somewhere.”
Keister’s LinkedIn also indicates that he accepted a job in Charlotte. Keister did not respond to multiple Citizen Times requests for comment.
Buncombe County has since tried and failed to hire another internal audit director. The county interviewed four applicants for the position and did not hire anyone, according to a Feb. 2 email from spokesperson Stacey Wood.
“The Internal Auditor position was posted twice, once by our organization and, after a failed search, we sought assistance from a national recruiting firm specializing in government hires. No candidate was hired,” Wood said in a Jan. 31 email. “We will reinitiate a national search in Spring 2024 to fill the director position.”
The county appointed Matthew Baker as the interim audit director effective Jan. 1. Wood said Baker previously worked in the county’s strategy and innovation department. Two former audit department employees are assisting Baker, Wood said.
The county is not completely without oversight. An external firm presented an audit for the 2023 fiscal year to county commissioners in January, finding that Buncombe's basic financial statements were clean. This analysis, however, is different than the function the internal audit department performs.
High-risk departments with little oversight
The audit department’s staffing deficiencies have led some oversight plans to stall.
Under Keister, the audit department planned to develop quarterly projects throughout the 2023 and 2024 calendar years. These ranged from evaluating cash and grants management, to looking into high-risk departments, like the sheriff’s office and emergency services.
Despite staff completing the working for some of these projects, audit subcommittee minutes indicate that many of these projects have languished.
More: What did Buncombe’s revamped internal watchdog investigate this year? Cash handling and IT
The Audit Department planned a project on “Information Technology General Control” during the first quarter of the 2023 fiscal year. According to subcommittee meeting minutes from June 6, 2023, that audit work was completed. This audit analyzed the county’s IT program for adherence to government security guidelines and to ensure information is protected. The audit department created 10 recommendations for the IT department to remediate.
“Identified findings lie across administrative/management, operational, and technical functions,” the summary said.
The IT Department is on track to remediate the findings of the audit by June 30, according to the summary.
The Citizen Times requested the holistic findings of the audit. County spokesperson Lillian Govus said in a Feb. 7 email that the findings would be heavily redacted because it would disclose vulnerabilities to the county’s system.
Other projects, however, have remained in purgatory.
The county planned to review its cash and grant management processes. According to the March 2022 audit committee meeting minutes, the department planned the cash management audit because of the county’s “decentralized cash collections.” The county planned a grant management audit because of varying requirements for different departments. Buncombe scheduled these projects for the second and third quarters of the 2023 fiscal year, according to meeting minutes and presentations.
By June 2023, audit work for the cash management project was complete, according to meeting minutes. The finance department was working on an “overall cash management policy for the organization.”
“Once formal steps are complied, we will start remediation tracking for this project,” minutes read.
The county planned to set up a remediation tracker in September, according to meeting minutes. By December, the audit was complete, pending review.
Baker told the Citizen Times Feb. 7 that he planned to meet with the finance department to talk through the remediation plan, complete official sign-off and present the findings to the audit committee. The county anticipates the results of that audit will be available after the March audit committee meeting, Wood said in an email. That’s nine months after the audit work was complete.
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The county’s grant management audit is even further from the finish line. Meeting minutes indicate that this project was in the final testing phase as of June 2023. By September, that work was not complete and documented, meeting minutes say. Candace Searcy, the internal auditor for the county at the time, completed a new planning document that she gave to County Manager Avril Pinder for review.
Baker said the grant management project as well as consequential audits were delayed because of lack of staffing. According to the fiscal year 2024 audit plan obtained through Citizen Times public records request, the department planned operational audits into the sheriff’s office, emergency services and human resources in the first three quarters of the 2024 fiscal year.
Buncombe County is making some progress toward staffing its department. Interviews will begin the week of Feb. 19 for two audit analyst positions, according to a Feb. 14 email from Govus.
Mitchell Black covers Buncombe County and health care for the Citizen Times. Email him at mblack@citizentimes.com or follow him on Twitter @MitchABlack. Please help support local journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Staffing deficiencies stall Buncombe County internal audit department
