Minneapolis City Council — Transcript
Monday, December 8, 2025
MPD Fleet Management Audit Update
State Auditor Management and Compliance Reports
MPRB Revenue Collections Audit
Audit Charter Updates
Report of the City Auditor
Votes (5)
Update report from the police department on actions related to recommendations from the 2024 MPD fleet management audit (Item 3)
Deputy Chief Olsen detailed delays in vehicle accident investigations due to HR barriers (intensive training, staff turnover) and other high-priority cases. Prioritization is now based on severity and repeat offenders. Commander Risdorfer reported progress on fleet policies, GPS tracking via the CAD system, and managing external fuel cards. They are transitioning from a legacy database to the enterprise-wide Service Now. Commander Lewis covered the 100% compliance in the driver's license program and new measures for off-duty work audits, including a Power App for scheduling and compliance checks, and future integration with systems like UKG and Roll Call for real-time tracking.
2024 state of Minnesota office of the state auditor management and compliance reports (Item 5)
Karen Stacken presented findings from the 2024 audits. The City of Minneapolis and MPRB received 'unmodified' opinions, indicating sound financial statements. The City had four findings: a prior period adjustment, service organization controls (SOC 1 Type 2), suspension and debarment, and subrecipient monitoring. George Harrove and Rob Lang provided management's response, detailing corrective actions. They highlighted efforts to enforce vendor background checks, improve land value accounting in CPED, and bolster subrecipient monitoring. The most critical finding concerned a vendor's inability to provide SOC 1 Type 2 reports for the Convention Center's financial software, prompting internal review and vendor engagement.
Receiving and filing an assurance services report on revenue collections for audit phase 2 of the Minneapolis Park and Recck Board (Item 6)
Mr. Pudall presented the audit findings, highlighting that MPRB should strengthen its policies and controls for revenue collection. Seven issues were found, including one high-rated issue regarding staff writing down credit card information and outdated PCI DSS references. Other moderate findings covered vague cash handling policies, insufficient oversight, reconciliation gaps between shifts, lack of check endorsement, absent mailroom procedures, inadequate revenue collection training, and informal concession agreement inspections. Security concerns over assets and deposit transport definitions were also noted. MPRB management confirmed their agreement with recommendations and outlined action plans for remediation.
Approving updates to the audit charter (Item 7)
Moved by Chair Payne [1:16:59] · Seconded by Unknown [1:17:01]
Robert Timberman presented the updated audit charter, emphasizing it was a collaborative effort with the audit committee and the city attorney's office. He noted the document was ready for approval following discussions and legal review. The goal is to formally adopt the updated charter for current and future committee operations, ensuring it accurately reflects current governance structures and best practices.
Report of the city auditor (Item 8)
Robert Timberman provided a comprehensive update on the City Auditor's office activities. Completed work included the MPRB revenue collections audit. In-progress work includes audits of MPD's body-worn cameras, NSD's contract management, after-action reviews (Davis Muri, Allison Lucer), a Shot Spotter performance audit, and a broader procurement audit. An enterprise risk assessment and a new audit plan are also underway. Mr. Pudall reported 10 open and 22 overdue audit issues, noting that some delays are due to management's prioritization of critical items or long-term technology implementation plans. Timberman updated on staffing (new hires, filling vacancies), budget (optimistic for FTEs and new division funding), a new workforce optimization study, and upcoming changes for the January organizational meeting of the Audit Committee, including member reapplications and updating committee rules. The report was received and filed.
Notable Quotes (15)
Our MPD policy and procedure is 4411. The accident review committee shall make a preliminary review of all accidents. Upon finding an accident preventable, the accident review committee shall forward the case to the internal affairs unit. After approval of the re recommended finding, the IU will determine if any MPD policy procedure was violated and if so, an IAU investigation will be conducted.
Yep. They do do it by surve severity first and then the priority would be if it's uh somebody was injured in the accident obviously that would take precedence and if there are multiple policy violations and if there's more than one preventable accident that occurred by an employee that would also take precedence.
The reason why this one isn't in remediate is one of the things that we're implementing is through the service now integration to make it easier for our officers and others to report maintenance issues versus the current process we have. It's a bit outdated and so we're expected to go live with that in January 2026. So, we just thought until that's live and functional, we wouldn't push for the remediate.
However, workforce director will continue to be the system of record for officers PL hours as this is information that the officers are entering themselves.
Our opinions for both the park board and the city were unmodified which means that it's a clean opinion. It's the best opinion that can be issued. Um, this means that the financial statements are fairly presented and conform with applicable accounting standards.
For that one, we do have a new accounting manager there. They meet with um we've set up a regular uh series of meetings. I believe it's at least quarterly if not monthly. And they review the records on sales force, which keep their land transactions with what we have in our general ledger.
For the convention center the software we use wasn't able to produce such a report. Um so we have developed um an internal um review process to go through that information verify that it is appropriate as well as working with momentous leadership um to figure out a plan moving forward to get those reports.
So basically the the only time they were taking um credit card information is whenever some of the machines were not working um and they were shredding that later on. But the goal is to not to even take the uh information on paper.
The current policy does state that you can write it down and shred it and so we do need to eliminate that from the policy.
Uh Chair Payne and um, member of NA, we have categories of sites. So, our recreation centers will have a sightspecific procedure that will be the same for all recreation centers. Their business is typically the same. We'll have sightspecific procedures for all of our golf courses. That'll be the same. So I'm estimating about 10 separate site specific procedures and I've already completed with uh the site managers uh four out of those 10.
getting into the audit charter, this has been a collaborative effort between the audit committee. At our last meeting, we went through and had a a fairly robust discussion about some of the uh what should be included, what should not be included in the audit charter. Um after that meeting, we worked with the city attorney's office to make sure that the things that we had discussed were uh agreeable on a legal level.
This is going to be an interesting audit because one of our new auditors uh hills from the city of Chicago which is one of the cities that um has done a report on Shot Spotter and has made some decisions based on their work. Uh, and so I'm excited to have um Matt Kwaters who has joined us recently, our our newest addition. Um, he's starting to take a look at this work as well as a few of our other auditors.
So, so out of those 22 like some of these like MPD uh fleet management those are part of the overview as well and for some like I mentioned for the revenue and collection right now the priority is to make sure the internal controls related to the convention center gets taken care of before they focus so it's not um uh they're not willing to do that but it's just like when you pri you try to prioritize more important stuff than I know this is important as well but based on their limitation with their staff they just need to prioritize their resources and that's why we have some of those uh overdoses as well.
But I do think where things currently stand um budget is looking strong for our office. And so I do appreciate the work from the council members including the committee chair. Uh the last piece of the budget update, we did go through the process to amend the contract with Hogan Adams, which is the law firm that's assisting in our special reviews uh or our afteraction reviews. Um that has been amended to get us through June of this year.
So the city council and MPB will be deciding on their leadership and who they will appoint to this committee. Um and that needs to be sorted out in early January. Uh and then for the citizen members on this committee, you've all been appointed to three-year terms, which I believe have just uh at the end of this year completed. So, the clerk has asked that when the information goes out that you uh if you're interested uh please express that interest, reapply.
Ordinances & Resolutions (18)
The audit whose recommendations are being updated and discussed by the Minneapolis Police Department.
MPD policy regarding vehicle accident investigations, specifically the role of the Accident Review Committee.
Reports detailing the results of the State Auditor's audits for the City of Minneapolis, MPRB, and MBC.
Federal requirements for federal award programs, referenced in the State Auditor's audit standards.
A prior audit finding for the city that was resolved.
A prior audit finding for the city related to federal award programs that was resolved.
A type of internal audit report for hosted financial systems, identified as a concerning finding for the city regarding its software vendors.
The current audit report on MPRB's revenue collection processes.
Data security standards for handling customer credit card information, a key area of concern in the MPRB revenue collections audit.
Document governing the operations and scope of the Audit Committee, which was updated and approved.
A state-required audit in the fieldwork stage for the MPD.
An in-progress audit of NSD's contract management practices.
Special reviews in progress, with a final report expected in April.
A new audit initiated at the request of the City Council and Audit Committee.
A follow-up audit to look more broadly at city procurement processes.
An in-progress assessment to identify and rate risks across the city, to inform management's mitigating strategies.
The annual plan for the City Auditor's office, which will be a separate document from the risk assessment and based on auditable hours.
Document governing the Audit Committee, last updated in 2010, scheduled for discussion and update in January 2026.