A Performance Audit
An Audit Report on the Health and Human Services Commission's System of Contract Operation and Reporting
February 2019
Summary Analysis
The Health and Human Services Commission (Commission) did not ensure that information in its new contract management system was complete and accurate.
Completeness and Accuracy of SCOR Data
The Commission’s System of Contract Operation and Reporting (SCOR) (1) contained errors and unsupported information and (2) did not have all necessary contract information. Those data accuracy and completeness issues occurred because the Commission did not:
- Implement adequate controls in its financial system, the Centralized Accounting Payroll/Personnel System (CAPPS), to ensure the accuracy and completeness of new contracts transferred into SCOR.
- Ensure that contract documentation was consistently uploaded into SCOR.
- Ensure that information related to contracts migrated from previous systems was complete and accurate.
Quality Assurance Process
The Commission implemented a quality assurance process to improve the accuracy and completeness of contract information in SCOR after it had been entered or migrated, and the Commission identified and updated records related to contract information it reported to the Legislative Budget Board to help ensure the accuracy of that reporting. However, due to the volume and complexity of the Commission’s contracts, that process alone is not sufficient to ensure that all contract data in SCOR is complete and accurate.
Commission Contracts Exceeding $100 Million
Pursuant to Texas Government Code requirements, the State Auditor’s Office compiled a list of each Commission contract with a total value exceeding $100 million, as well as all contracts for managed care services. As of November 12, 2018, the Commission had a total of 92 contracts valued at more than $100 million. Those 92 contracts had expenditures totaling $119 billion.
The Commission does not ensure that all new contract information entered into SCOR is complete and accurate. Specifically:
- The Commission did not implement adequate controls in CAPPS to help ensure that contract information in SCOR is complete. In a one-time review that the Commission performed in September 2018, it identified more than 75 contracts in CAPPS that were missing from SCOR.
- Contract information in SCOR was not always accurate. Only 5 (29 percent) of 17 active contracts tested were accurate and supported.
- The Commission did not ensure that contract managers uploaded contract documents to SCOR as required. As of November 2018, 489 (14 percent) of 3,518 new contract records that were at least 30 days old in SCOR did not have any supporting documentation uploaded into the system, including an electronic version of the contract.
While the Commission made a significant effort to standardize and format the contract data that was migrated from its previous contract management systems, those processes were not sufficient to identify and correct all errors in that information. Specifically, only 7 (29 percent) of the 24 migrated contracts tested were accurate and supported. Additionally, 2,471 (14 percent) of the 18,264 migrated contracts in SCOR did not have any documents uploaded in SCOR, including the electronic version of the contract.
The Commission implemented a quality assurance process to help ensure the accuracy and completeness of certain data in SCOR. The quality assurance process successfully identified and updated certain errors in SCOR information. The Commission uses that information to report its contracts to the Legislative Budget Board. However, the Commission did not always correct records with errors that the quality assurance process identified through other types of reports.
Reliance on the quality assurance process, which identifies errors after they occur, is not sufficient to ensure the accuracy and completeness of SCOR data caused by the issues discussed in Chapters 1-A and 1-B.
The Commission established a change management process for changes to its SCOR system. Specifically, the Commission appropriately documented, authorized, and tested all 12 changes reviewed.
The Commission did not ensure that access to SCOR and CAPPS was restricted to only users who required that access to perform their assigned duties.
Based on information that the Commission provided from SCOR, the State Auditor’s Office identified 92 contracts with a total value exceeding $100 million. According to the Commission, as of November 12, 2018, expenditures for those 92 contracts totaled approximately $119 billion.
Graphics, Media, Supporting documents