State Auditor Says City of Everett Internal Controls Over Payments to Vendors are Inadequate

The Washington State Auditor’s Office recently completed an audit of how the City of Everett handles payments to vendors of some federal grants. The auditor said the city was not making sure that the people it paid money to were not suspended or debarred from doing business from the federal government. Here’s an excerpt from the findings…

Description of Condition
The City paid six vendors a total of $948,096 for goods and services such as solar powered trash compactors, professional services, construction management and electrical supplies and materials without ensuring they were not suspended or disbarred from receiving federal funds. The City did not have a written certification of suspension and debarment for vendors under this program and did not perform any other procedures, such as checking the federal excluded parties list or including a clause in its vendor contracts, to ensure compliance with suspension and debarment requirements.

According to the auditor’s report the city needs to establish procedures to make sure that it’s not paying vendors who are not eligible. You can click here to read the entire report.

A separate accountability audit of local city operations (those not involving federal funds) found the city was doing a good job of following State law and its own policies and procedures. You can see that report here.

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