001Good evening everyone. Miss Barton, thank you for starting the recording. The time is now 6:07 p.m. and I would like to call to order the September 2nd, 2025 board audit committee meeting. Welcome everyone. My name is Dr. Tiffany Anderf and I'm the chair of this committee and the District 1 board member. The primary purpose of the Prince George's County Board of Education Audit Committee is to provide oversight of financial reporting process, the audit process, the PGCPS system of internal controls and compliance with laws and regulations. And welcome to our committee members this year and any other board of education members. I don't know if there are any others on right now, um, but it doesn't appear so. Also, I'd like to welcome members of the administration and special guests. We will now begin with introductions
002starting in this order. Board members, PGCPS administration, board office staff, and all other guests. >> Uh, thank you, Dr. Ander. I'm Pamela Boozer Strut. I serve as the vice uh chair of the audit committee. I am the district 3 board of education member. >> Hello. My name is Brandon Jackson uh district six board member. I'm Dana Thorps and I am the director of internal audit for PGCPS. >> Good evening. My name is Mia Barton. I am administrative secretary in the board office. >> Miss Styles. >> Hi, good evening. Uh I'm Cassandra Styles and I'm a new uh member of the ethics advisory panel. >> Welcome. >> Thank you. >> Well, thank you everyone for joining this evening. We will now proceed with the roll call of the board audit committee members. Miss Barton, could you
003please call the role? >> Certainly. Dr. Ander, >> present. >> Miss Boost, >> present. Mr. Jackson, >> present. >> Dr. Moss, >> we have quum. >> Fantastic. The quorum is present. We will now move on with item 3.0, adoption of the September 2nd, 2025 agenda. The question is to adopt the September 2nd, 2025 board audit committee meeting agenda without objection. There being no objection, the September 2nd, 2025 board audit committee meeting agenda has been adopted. We'll now move on to item 4.0, approval of the June 2nd, 2025 meeting minutes. The question is to approve the June 2nd, 2025 board audit committee meeting minutes without objection. There being no objection, the June 2nd, 2025 board audit committee meeting minutes have been approved and we'll now proceed to items 5.0 for public comment, 5.1, public comment, registered
004public comment, speakers, live pre-recorded or written. This evening there are no registered public comment speakers and so we will proceed to item 6.0 presentations. Fantastic. Well, welcome everyone. Now that we've gone through majority of the formality of the opening of our meeting, I just want to take the opportunity to welcome everyone to the first board audit committee meeting of the school year. excited to be here and and especially excited to be serving again with board member Boozer Stru um as vice chair this year and so excited about the work ahead um in my first full year um in this role. So this evening's agenda will focus on an introduction of the board audit committee. We found this to be helpful last year. We'll also have an opportunity to hear from Miss Dina Thorps from our
005internal audit office. She'll provide a brief presentation providing an overview of the role of internal audit as well as some of the work that they've been working on for the past year and some of what lies ahead. Um, and we are grateful to have with us one of our newest members of the ethics panel, um, who's here this evening. Um and so Miss Styles, I know you are you are new to the panel. Um but we welcome you to share um any of your knowledge of the panel and if not we will certainly ensure that the public is aware of the role of the ethics panel. So the purpose of tonight is just to ensure that everyone is aware of all of the respective entities the roles that we play as we move forward in
006the year and proceed with the work of the board audit committee. And so with that, I will begin with a brief overview um of the role of the board audit committee. Miss Barton, am I able to share my screen? >> Oh, did you want I shared mine. Did you want to >> I'm gonna share a different version. >> Absolutely. Go right ahead. >> Just want to make sure I have that functionality. >> You do. I do. Okay. Hold on one second. You all can actually see this. One moment. I may have to share it this way. Apologies. Are you all able to see my screen? >> Yes. >> Okay. So the board audit committee um again this evening we will um discuss the role of the board audit committee internal audit as well as the
007ethics panel and so for those of you who may be unaware um the board audit committee was established um through board policy 8100 the establishment of total four standing committees the board of education um with the board audit committee being the newest um so the role of the committee we work to ensure equitable use of public funds across PGCPS PS schools. We review prior internal control issues and resolutions. We also work to examine complex accounting reporting and management responses. We of course oversee current internal and external audits and we review significant accounting policies, judgments, and estimates um impacting financial statements. What you'll also see often take place is that if there are concerns um that the public or the board have oftent times those can manifest in the form of requested audits um that then
008we can share with our internal audit office um and from there oftent times you'll see some of those audits be reported out on um in this space in our audit committee meeting. So you will see that transpire this year if this is your first time joining an audit committee meeting. I'll pause to see if anyone has questions. I'm sure that they do not um on this very call or board member Boozer Stru um or um board member Jackson if you have anything that you would add that could provide a little any additional color to the role of the board audit committee. >> Yes, board member Booz. Yeah, I think I would just add the um you know aspect of the evolution of the committee that until 2024 uh actually into 20 yeah into 2024 that
009the role of the audit committee was under the um operations uh budget and fiscal affairs committee and the uh agenda items weren't as frequent or with the depth that we have been able to do for the last year. And so I I would encourage anyone reviewing um this meeting to go back to the past year of audit committee meetings and see the many uh reports and topics that we have covered because we we did not have at that depth at the committee level that that work which we now as the committee members bring to our colleagues of the full board. So I I would just like to call out that context of the evolution of of this work. Thank you. >> Apologies Jackson. >> Thank you. And I would also like to add the uh
010along with the evolution um of this board um championed by um you know my colleague uh board member Boozer Strers as well. Um when we were working um to create this entity um as a standing committee, this was prior to or on the cusp of the um OIC um being created as well. And um as we were working to beef up um internal audit and OIC um the board saw fit to have um its own autonomous um committee to kind of handle um that space um to kind of separate it to have a line of demarcation between Obafa and audit specifically. Um so that's just a little bit of the background context with that as well. So um definitely um have take leaps and bounds since the uh since it was a a committee under
011Obaka. >> Thank you both for that historical context. Um appreciate um both Chair Jackson and um board member Boozer Strather for the historical context as they were both the two originating members um of the board audit committee. So grateful to have both of them here um and to usher me into the space. I'm learning a great deal from both of them. So um I'd like to at this point turn it over to Miss Dina Thorps who will be able to share um and provide some information about the in about the office of internal audit. Um, and what we'll be able to do in the end is kind of speak to where there are overlaps and similarities and leave ideally with everyone having a shared understanding of the respective roles, responsibilities and areas of overlap um,
012amongst the separate entities. So, Miss Dorps, I'll turn it over to you. >> Thank you so much, Dr. Andul. Um, it's my pleasure to be here today. This is really like my first official audit committee meeting as well, so I'm looking forward to presenting. I started with PGCPS in March of this year. So, it's been a great opportunity to learn and I'm just excited to be in this role and help lead this internal audit department. Um, moving into these slides. Um, so I just want to take a quick few minutes to introduce the PGCPS internal audit team. As mentioned before, I'm the director, Dana Thorps, and I currently have nine full-time equivalents or nine staff members. And this also includes um a business analyst. And so our complete listing for the current staffing within internal
013audit is all located on the PGCPS internal audit web page. Um and you can look there to get the full list of my entire team's name. I'm sure if you work for the school or you've had anything come to you, it's come you'll recognize some of the names there. For our business analysts, this is kind of a special role where they also support the board of education office and they review some of those board of education member expenses just to make sure that everything complies with the board policies in terms of expenditures. So, we're always doing oversight and monitoring to make sure that all expenses as well as internal controls within PGCPS are intact. And another thing related to my team, um, we require that all staff, this is also required by auditing standards in
014general, especially if they are credentialed, they are required to complete 40 hours of CPE annually. And so this is how we stay a breast of new developments and things to think about when we're doing our audit engagements. We are located in a trailer that is behind the Sasser building and that is trailer 500. And if there's anything that you want to contact us for, our contact information is there as well as on the PGCPS web page for our internal audit organization as well as authority. When it comes to governance, our authority and responsibilities as the office of internal audit was created or established by the board of education. And as the internal audit director, I report directly to the board of education and I have a direct access to the board chair, the board vice
015chair as well as the CEO, which is really should be like the superintendent or interim superintendent, Dr. Joseph's at the moment. And so this reporting structure, it ensures that we continue to meet our government auditing standard requirements, which we also consider yellowbook when it comes to independence. And so this requirement requires that we are independent in fact in appearance from the actual school system. We do not act as management. We instead just review what each of those business units within PGCPS have done to make sure that they are complying with policies, procedures as well as um any laws or regulations that are applicable for their specific jurisdiction. for our BOE policy 8373. This is what created um our office as well and it provides us with complete access to all PGCPS schools records um and
016that also includes personnel records, documents and files of any kind that um we would need to complete any of our audit engagements. And this also granted us the authority to request assistance and receive full cooperation from all PGCPS personnel as it relates to our internal audit engagements. Our current office responsibilities, we do a variety of different audits and projects. Um some of the things that we most commonly do are going to be student activity fund audits. And this is where we look at how each individual schools um comply with the accounting procedures manual for school activity funds. And so this lets us know that in case there's any like student activity that requires money to come in and go out through the schools that they've complied with that APM um policy. We also look at
017um operational audits. And so those are going to be more where we are looking at procedures. We'll look at their internal controls around how things are being done. And we'll also look at um establish standard operating procedures and manuals to make sure that the teams are complying with what their processes have been established. We also do investigative reports and this is where we have our hotline um NAVIX or ethics point where you can submit re um complaints or tips that might need to come to internal audits per purview for us to do some further research and investigative procedures. Um we also again as Dr. Andul mentioned it could come from the board or from community members as well. So, we take all of these things into consideration and rep prioritize them based on the severity
018of the complaint or the tip. Um, and that goes to the special request as well. Some of our other responsibilities, as I mentioned before, we do board member expenditure review. We also assist with the external CPA firm that we've contracted to do our annual comprehensive financial report. So, we make sure that everything is in place for them. and um in the selection of that CPA firm as well. We also monitor external audit activities and the hotline administration that I touched on a few minutes ago. And we also support the ethics committee whenever they have something that needs to come to our department for any weigh-in or thoughts on those matters. Some of our internal auditing reporting includes like periodically and so every audit engagement that um we have completed we typically issue a report and
019this goes to anybody that we were auditing during that audit. It also includes the superintendent um the board of education as a whole and um the chief of staff and any other responsible management level staff. This typically also includes our action plan response that comes from the business unit that we've completed an audit on and this is required for all of the recommendations that are built into our audit reports on a quarterly basis. We also report our internal audit activities um that is issued to the board of education members, the CEO or superintendent as well as any executive that is per um permitted to have that kind of information. And then monthly I attend the board of education executive sessions where I provide them with an update on activities that we have completed for the
020prior period. And we also um give an update on external audit activities as well during those monthly board of education executive sessions. for fiscal year 25. I'm really proud of the team and the work that they were able to accomplish being down a director for a little bit. Um, I know that the supervisor, Miss Walter Simple, has done a wonderful job with just making sure that the team stayed afloat and very successful in still issuing out reports. I cannot commend her enough for the hard work and effort that she's done. Um, for the total year, we issued 58 audit reports to date. um that included a variety of school activity funds, operational audits as well as investigations. In addition to the 58 audit reports that we received, we process 558 hotline reports. So these are
021the tips that we get from the community or staff members within PGCPS to just tell us about things that we should be aware of. Um and so for fiscal year 2025, we have substantially completed at least 52% of our planned audit annual audit plan. Um that included 11 out of 21 operational audits, but that doesn't even scratch the surface for the total amount of student activity funds and investigation reports that we actually issued. So we did a lot of leg work in um investigations and student activity fund reports. And currently for staffing, we have a very good team that's well staffed. They are welloiled machine. I am short two individuals. So we do have two vacancies that I'll be working to fill those this current fiscal year so that we can be fully functional and
022able to accomplish even more room than we have in the past. And for ongoing business or other action items, we are currently in the process of preparing our fiscal year 2026 annual audit plan. Um, we are currently in the process of having preliminary discussions in order to create that plan. And the operations risk analysis that was previously conducted is going to help us with that framework along with discussions and insight from this audit committee as well as some of the executive cabinet members in terms of things that are coming to their perview that might be impactful for us to include in our audit plan. and then some of the pertinent policies and procedures that apply to internal audit. As I previously mentioned, policy board policy 8373 that creates the office of internal audit. If there's
023any questions in terms of like what our requirements are related to that, these are all publicly available on the PGCPS website. There is also policy 9260 which is for auditors. And then we also have the 9354 policy which is for the board members vouchered reimbursement of expenses. So this goes back to our review of board member expenses prior to being reimbursed. We also have policy 0109 which highlights fraud, waste, and abuse. And there's also policy 107 which is the ethics regulations. So we take all of these things into consideration as we um execute our roles and responsibilities within internal audit. And that wraps up what I needed to cover. Um are there any questions for me? Am I able to ask that question? Thank you so much, Miss Thorps. um really appreciate it and and
024forgive me for not formally welcoming you. It feels like you've been here longer than you have. >> I know. >> I think that's just because of the expertise that you bring um and a lot of the work that you've done thus far. So um want to also take the opportunity to formally welcome you um to the role um and also although Miss Walter Simple is not here as you mentioned um also thank her for for her service and the work that she's done as well. Does anyone have questions? Yes, board member Boozer brother. >> Yeah, thank you so much, Miss Thorps. Really appreciate uh having you and for the report today and for our the first full school year working with you. Um the um for the student activity funds, can you explain those a
025little more to the the public? Um those are fully voluntary voluntary contributions, correct? They do not include any of the public funds that come through the budget. >> Correct. So, let's say for instance, a middle school has a cheerleading team. Those funds that are coming in to assist with the cheerleading team to make sure that they have pompoms, uniforms, snacks for the students, if the parents aren't providing those, those are the types of funds that they're using. They'll collect. They have to be properly logged. And there's also um certain policies and things that need to be done like the money or the MTF funds. They have to complete these um documents to just kind of capture all of the funding that they've collected where they have been um deposited and that they've also completed them
026timely for their deposits. In addition to the student activity funds, just collections and um dispersements, they're also required to do like reconciliations to make sure that they don't overspend money that they don't actually have for those accounts. So, those are some of the things that sometimes we come across when we do these student activity funds. But essentially, like you said, it's kind of like the voluntary aspect of things that students might be involved in where funds need to come in and go out to support that activity. Yeah, I really appreciate you covering that because it is a significant amount of money that comes through our schools and it >> and as an institution, we have decided that we would treat those voluntary funds the same way we do with the public taxpayer funds that fund
027the system. And you know, as someone who served as a PTO treasurer, I have felt sort of the difficulty of that of cash coming, multiple people watching you count the cash, making sure it's in the safe, making sure it's protected. >> And we have many employees who kind of volunt they volunteer to expose themsel to that risk for the benefit of our children. And I first I want to thank everyone because it is a it can be difficult to track an online contribution in cash and making sure it's reconciled in all these ways that could be um with an audit department. You might think you know it maybe I don't want to expose myself but we have many employees who have made that decision and I want to thank them because I know as a
028PTO treasurer we had the same we had the same concerns and the same rules around those voluntary contributions. So it is a significant thing that we provide uh for school school donors you know that we are watching out for those voluntary contributions too whether you go through donor's choose or you know wherever you're wherever you're making those donations we are watching them and I just I appreciate you giving that assurance to everybody >> and those reports are all like we're trying to keep them on the website as they are being issued. I know I probably issued a handful so far this current school year already, but um I know for the previous three fiscal years, those reports are also available on the PGCPS internal audit website. So, if there is a school that might be
029subject to an upcoming student activity fund, especially as we have like new principles coming into play, they may want to take a look at the website just to kind of get their eyes on what types of things we look at and some of the findings that we generally find so that they can prevent those issues from occurring. >> Yeah, thank you. >> Fantastic. I have a question. Um so you mentioned that of course um audits can of come by way of the public. Um I want to give a kind of somewhat of a of an example but would also just love to hear you speak uh specifically to you know how that can how that can take place. So, um I know that there is a um there's a member of a parent, sorry, in
030district 5. I believe this was brought to me by way of another board member, but um a question that they had was around um our buses and transportation. M >> um and they were curious um about, you know, if we had it, if we'd ever done a transportation audit, I mean, a bus audit, if we'd ever looked specifically at whether it was specific routes or just bus the bus um busing as a whole and conducted an audit to see um you know, how often buses were um not on time, how often buses um did not um show up for specific routes. Um, so just kind of an indepth audit um of of our busing and the parent specifically wanted to know if this was something they wanted to have looked into, what would be the
031path that they would take? Their question was, would they just call the hotline? Would they email you? Who would what would they do? Um, so the question is really more so from a parent constituent perspective. um how they >> kind of navigate um you know expressing some of these interests and exploring the possibility of having something turn into an audit if at all. >> Okay. Um so with that I would actually recommend for that indepth of a situation because it's not really a complaint or an allegation that something is going on based on how you've described it. I would inform them to send internal audit um an email. Um, I shared that on one of the earlier screens, but if you go to the PGCPS internal audit web page, you'll be able to see the
032general or generic um, PGCPS internal audit email address, you can submit it that way, and then it will be processed um, in accordance with what we might have ability to do, especially if it's not already previously planned for this upcoming fiscal year, this current fiscal year, I should say. With that also being said though, we have started scratching the surface of doing some transportation audits. So to give them some level of peace, I know that we have we're in the reporting phase of the Zonar system, which is used to try to track the maintenance and needs of vehicles that are used for PGCPS, specifically buses. And I know that there was another audit done, I think last fiscal year before I came on board, um related to some of the busing as well. So, we
033are getting a lot of interest in the busing and scheduling routes and things like that. So, I know it's a big hot topic and a concern. Um, typically with our audits, that's a very large universe of things to really consider. So, what we would try to do is like dissect it and like kind of peacemail it over a course of time versus just trying to do a whole indepth bus route, bus scheduling, things like that. um type of engagement. >> That's helpful. Thank you, board member Boozer. >> Yeah. And specifically to this topic of transportation, the former superintendent um contracted with the company called Formative to do a a superintendent driven performance audit. So along with there, you know, the the internal audit, we could probably list, you know, up to 10 significant internal, external,
034federal, county, state oversightes and audit abilities um on any anything within PGCPS. and the the format of company did that for PGCPS two years ago which led to the significant changes in transportation and the routes and the and the alignment of bell schedules. So that there is a baseline data from two years a well I mean the data might be a little over two two years but that process of significant change started two years ago and that's all on the uh board the former board docs and now the board's diligent platform has those for anyone interested. >> Thank you. Thank you board member Boozer. Any other questions for Miss Thorps? Anything related to internal audit? Okay, fantastic much. Um, and now we'll move on to our ethics panel. And again, I know Miss Styles, this
035is likely your gosh, is this your first day? >> It is. >> Yeah. So, one, welcome again. Um so so maybe we'll do something a little different here. Um the hope would be if you could just introduce yourself. Um just tell us a little bit about yourself. Um and perhaps why you're interested in serving on the ethics panel. If you would like to share any understanding that you have of of your role in the panel um feel free but don't feel obligated to. I will follow up with just sharing some of the high level roles and responsibilities of the ethics panel. >> Okay. Certainly. Well, good evening everyone and again my apologies for not being on camera. I'm in the car. I promise to be on camera during our next meeting. Um, so I think
036my background really lends itself to to serve um the ethics panel. Um, I'm an attorney by trade and for about 16 years in my legal career, I was an administrative judge with the Merit Systems Protection Board, which is a, you know, a federal administrative agency. um and kind of the watchdog over um federal personnel law as well as um sometimes there were some ethical issues that we would have to determine what whether they rose to the level of discipline. Um, I did that for a while and then, um, in 2022 I left that role and moved into a leadership position as the chief diversity officer at the Federal Aviation Administration. Um, obviously what happened with the election, my position was abolished as well as my team. I was moved to the um chief counsel's office
037at the FAA where I'm again evaluating ethical violations and disciplinary actions of federal employees and I'm currently on detail as the director of employee relations in our HR office again um evaluating employee conduct to determine if it rises to the level of discipline, ethical violations, misconduct and the like as well as performance. So, uh, when I saw this vacancy announcement, I thought, well, gosh, this could be a great way for me to lend my skill set to, um, the county and, um, to the board of education, and I thought it would fit squarely, um, with what I do daytoday. So, that's why I threw my hat in the ring. >> Fantastic. Well, thank you so much, St. Miss Styles. Um, truly appreciate your your willingness to throw your hat in the ring. Um, and obviously
038sounds like you have a wealth of experience. So, we welcome you. Um, and again, thank you for your upcoming service. Um, and for joining on your first day. >> Okay. Thank you. And thank you for having me. I appreciate it. >> No problem at all. And so, for the public, I'll just share um, and I know the sharing of my screen is a little problematic. Apologies, Mia, for not allowing you to do this as as well as you do, but for some reason it's not wanting me to be great. So, I will try this again. So, the ethics panel screen is trying to Here we go. The ethics panel. So for the ethics panel um the ethics panel advises on ethics compliance um and conflicts of interest. Um many are familiar with the ethics panel's
039role in being the custodian of financial disclosure forms um for members of the board of education specifically. Um we look to the ethics panel to provide advisory opinions on all ethics ma matters. Um they also provide education to the board of education on all ethics regulations um and ensure accountability um of the board um and staff. Uh the board policy that also Miss Thorp's um referenced board policy 0107 on ethics regulations also speaks specifically um to the role of the ethics panel. And so just this year um as Miss Styles just mentioned, we um were successful in filling um any um some of our vacancies um for the panel. And so we now have a full panel and we are excited to have them on board. Um and excited um again as a as a
040new board member, I'll speak for myself specifically. um we were able to go through a training recently um just with a better understanding of some of the ethics regulations. I learned quite a deal. Um and so just excited about the opportunity to have them here. Um and quite honestly across all of these all three of the entities that were referenced tonight um I think there there are a few things that are that are true um that I look at as similarities and so it's clear that all three are working to ensure accountability, transparency um and integrity in their own respective um functions. So I'll just pause to see if anyone has questions about the ethics panel. And again, we have some members of the board here who may have even more insight on the role
041of the ethics panel um historical context or knowledge. But I will pause to see if anyone has questions or comments, additions. Okay. So one other thing that I will will note um is that when we think about audit and compliance um specifically looking at the the role of the board audit committee I think a simple way to to look at it is that you know we're working to provide oversight the internal audit office um is also working to provide that but is really um digging into execution right when we think about our ethics panel the ethics panel may also refer um things to internal audit um but again as I mentioned one of their primary roles and responsibilities is just to ensure that um that the board is functioning in an ethical manner um as
042well as as the staff. Um board chair Jackson, did you have a comment or question? >> Yes, I did just want to say um that it's been a long time um coming and uh we're just thankful to have you all here. um the ethics panel uh fully fully loaded. Um we know we've been getting a lot of pressure to get this thing squared away. Um so this is definitely a godsend and we're looking to uh work with you collaboratively and as a chair I just wanted to extend um you know welcome um to the PGCPS community and uh if there's anything that we can do support please don't hesitate to reach out. Thank you so much. >> Okay, so this um moving forward um what you'll be able to see is our updated cadence of
043meetings um for the rest of the year. Um but what I will note is that our next meeting will involve um an overview of the internal audit work plan for 2526 for this school year. Um so you'll be able to see what the focus of the internal audit um committee will be. We will also in our upcoming board me meeting that takes place on September 3rd, no 28th 25th, sorry about that. September 25th, um you will hear um from me speaking to the um charge of this committee as well as um the upcoming work that we intend to focus on the audits that we will be bringing forward um to discuss um members of the administration that will be joining us throughout the year. And so we do hope that you will come back um
044and and join us whether you know in person submitting comment um or just watching virtually. And so with that we will proceed to adjourn tonight's meeting. Any follow-ups from tonight's meeting will be shared upon receipt. There being no additional further business, the time is now 6:47 p.m. and the September 2nd, 2025 board audit committee meeting is adjourned. Thank you again everyone and have a good evening.