Fulton promises changes in wake of IT audit

Fulton County plans to seek an independent assessment of its Information Technology Department after an audit questioned the way it managed millions of dollars in contracts.

The assessment could lead to improvements in the oversight of contracts and determine whether the department should continue to outsource some work or hire employees to do it, according to documents obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Officials said they also plan to address other problems found in the audit, including possible violations of ethics and procurement policies.

“We realize we’ve got to have an overall IT assessment,” Interim Director Shin Kim said Friday. “We want to see an overall picture of where we are and what’s the best way to go in the future.”

Last fall, Fulton County’s internal auditors reviewed contracts awarded to Randstad Technology of Alpharetta and Consilium Consulting of Roswell. Randstad provides the county network engineering, telephone technical support and other services. Consilium provides software licensing and support, database administration, disaster recovery planning and other services.

The auditors released their report in December. Among other things, they found:

• The IT Department paid the vendors $14.6 million in advance of services rendered, though county policies require payment only after the work is done.

• An assistant IT director supervised a contract employee who was his former business partner, creating a conflict of interest and placing "the integrity of the county's business practices in an unfavorable light."

• A former IT employee went to work for an IT contractor three months after retiring. Fulton's ethics code requires former employees to wait at least a year before participating in a county contract.

• The department didn't maintain attendance records for some contracted employees and could not verify they worked the required hours.

• The department lacked procedures to adequately monitor contracts, making it impossible to tell whether the vendors were doing the work they were paid to do.

In written responses to the audit, Kim disagreed with some of its findings. For example, he said, the former business relationship between the assistant director and the contract employee had been disclosed and deemed to not be a conflict of interest. He said the assistant director no longer supervises his former business partner, and all supervisors are getting a refresher course on ethics.

The department also now requires contract employees to record their time. Among other things, it plans to seek an independent assessment of its operations in coming months and do a better job of documenting vendor performance.