Preliminary Observe-up Report: An Audit of the Salt Lake County Council’s Travel Expenses – Auditor

AUDITOR’S LETTER

September 25, 2026

Under the authority of Utah Code Title 17, Chapter 69, Part 3, “Powers and Duties,” and in step with Generally Accepted Government Auditing Standards, this workplace tracks whether or not the suggestions we challenge are acted on.

This is the preliminary follow-up report for An Audit of the Salt Lake County Council’s Travel Expenses, issued in May 2025. That audit reported 5 findings and eight suggestions. Most of them shared a single theme: journey packets have been reaching Mayor’s Finance with out the documentation wanted to indicate {that a} reimbursement was right.

We commend Council workers for the work mirrored on this follow-up. Council workers developed and adopted an Internal Travel Guide, efficient June 25, 2025, and constructed two instruments round it — a Documentation Checklist the Travel Coordinator completes earlier than any packet is submitted, and an Annual Travel Tracking Spreadsheet that logs every journey prevalence, the varieties used, and what documentation stays excellent.

Of the eight suggestions, our standing is as follows:
• Six suggestions (75%) are applied.
• One advice (12.5%) is in progress.
• One advice (12.5%) couldn’t be examined.

The advice nonetheless in progress issues the Council’s inner requirement that journey documentation be submitted to the Travel Coordinator inside 30 days of return. Three of the 4 packets we examined met the timeframe; within the fourth, the lodge folio had not reached the Travel Coordinator once we started our evaluation on June 10, 2026. The advice we couldn’t take a look at issues hotel-room upgrades: the Council established a coverage for the way upgrades ought to be dealt with, however not one of the packets we examined this era concerned an improve, so there was nothing to check the brand new management towards. We recognized no countywide coverage violations within the transactions examined.

The scope of this evaluation coated actions taken between July 1, 2025 and June 30, 2026.

Council workers gave us immediate entry to the journey packets, the Internal Travel Guide, and the monitoring data we requested for, and answered our questions straight. We respect the Council’s cooperation and its continued dedication to strengthening these controls.

Chris Harding, CPA, CFE, CIA

Salt Lake County Auditor