The Board Should Enhance Its Policies and Procedures Related to Conference Activities

Other Matters for Management’s Consideration

During our review, we observed that various policies contain relevant requirements for planning conferences. Due to the decentralized nature of the Board’s organizational structure, the owners of policies and procedures may experience challenges in ensuring that divisions comply with applicable requirements. Board management should consider reinforcing to all Board divisions their responsibility and accountability for complying with existing policies and procedures, such as the Acquisition Policy, the Official Meals Expenses Policy, and the Records Policy and Procedures Manual.

We also identified that the Board does not have a central tracking mechanism for costs related to Board-sponsored conferences. Consequently, we could not conduct completeness testing to confirm the number of conferences and the corresponding costs reported by the divisions. Board management should consider developing a central tracking mechanism for conference-related activities to ensure that the Board is maintaining records in a manner suitable for review and for responding to oversight-related requests.