Follow Up Audit: Reviewing Agencies’ Implementation of Selected Performance Audit Recommendations

Introduction

The Legislative Post Audit Committee’s rules include a process to check onprior audit recommendations. That process has two primary components. First, the Post Auditor is required to follow up with each agency twice a year and have officials self-report on their progress in implementing recommendations. Second, the Post Auditor is required to prepare an audit proposal each year that lists “previous audit recommendations for which follow up audit work is necessary to independently ascertain whether such agency or other entity has implemented audit recommendations.”

On May 12, 2025, the Legislative Post Audit Committee approved the proposal staff prepared for that purpose. The proposal included 9 recommendations from 4 of our prior audits. The recommendations were for the groundwater management districts, Kansas Department of Commerce, Kansas Department of Revenue, and the Secretary of State.

Objectives, Scope, & Methodology

Our audit objective was to answer the following question:

1. To what extent have agencies implemented selected audit recommendations from performance audits issued in recent years?

To determine if the agencies implemented the recommendations, we reviewed original audit work, interviewed agency officials, and requested and reviewed agency documentation of implemented changes. Documentation included written policies and procedures, meeting minutes, internal agency correspondence, training presentations, guidance documents, screenshots of websites and databases, and agency-created reports.

We only did what was necessary to evaluate whether the agencies implemented the recommendations. We did not reevaluate the programs or problems found in the original audit. We also did not evaluate the effectiveness of the changes. For example, we reviewed whether an agency developed a written policy, but we did not evaluate how well the agency implemented the policy or whether it produced the intended result. Therefore, a finding that a recommendation was implemented does not mean that the agencies completely fixed any underlying problems.

More specific details about the scope of our work and the methods we used are included throughout the report as appropriate.

Important Disclosures

We conducted this performance audit in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. Overall, we believe the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on those audit objectives.

The entities implemented 4 of the 9 recommendations we reviewed for this audit.

Kansas’ 5 groundwater management districts implemented the recommendation from our 2023 audit of their programs.

In February 2023, we published an audit of groundwater management districts’ program responsibilities, their ability to address local concerns, and their spending.

• The 2023 audit, Evaluating Groundwater Management Districts’ Efforts to Conserve Water, noted that groundwater management districts are one of many entities involved in managing the state’s water resources and have little independent authority over water policies and regulations. Groundwater management districts are local units of government that oversee certain aspects of the groundwater resources within their boundaries. Kansas citizens voted to establish 5 such districts primarily in western and central Kansas. State law requires groundwater management districts do a few things, including having and reviewing a management program. This document typically describes the district, outlines any areas of concern, and defines the programs the district plans to operate to address those concerns.

• We found that all 5 groundwater management districts had a management program as required by state law, however:

1. Not all districts reviewed their management programs annually as required by state law and most revised their programs infrequently.
   
   
2. All 5 districts lacked adequate formal written policies directing when or how they revised their management programs.

• To address this, we recommended that the 5 groundwater management districts should develop written policies that describe when and how they will revise their management programs.

As of October 2025, all 5 groundwater management districts implemented the recommendation.

• We spoke with staff from each district and requested and reviewed documentation to verify the implementation of the recommendation from our 2023 audit. The documents included Kansas statute, written policies, and meeting minutes. We also spoke with groundwater management district managers to further understand how to interpret the documentation they provided.

• Figure 1 shows our results.

Figure 1. All 5 groundwater management districts have implemented the recommendation to develop written policies.
Recommendation	Status	Summary
Groundwater management districts should develop written policies that describe when and how they will revise their management programs.	Implemented	Groundwater management districts 1, 2, 3, and 5 approved written policies in 2023 for their oversight boards to review their management programs annually and to determine whether to revise or reaffirm those programs. Most of those policies included soliciting staff recommendations and public comments during the review process. The written policies also follow the statutory requirement for the districts to modify a management program when their board deems a revision is necessary.
		In their December 2023 meeting, the 4th district (Northwest) approved a motion to make it their official policy to review the management program at the annual board meeting (typically in February). The district manager told us the management program is revised with input from the Board on the changes they deem necessary. They provided evidence that they reviewed and approved the management program in 2024 and 2025. However, the policy was still not written. Because we saw evidence of review and approval, we determined the recommendation was implemented despite lacking a written policy.
Source: LPA review of relevant documents
Kansas Legislative Division of Post Audit

The Kansas Department of Commerce and Department of Revenue implemented the recommendation from our 2023 audit of the Rural Opportunity Zones program.

In August 2023 we published an audit evaluating to what extent the Rural Opportunity Zones Program reduced rural depopulation.

• The audit, Evaluating the Rural Opportunity Zone Program, noted that the program consists of 2 incentives intended to slow or reverse the depopulation in rural Kansas. The first incentive benefit is a student loan repayment assistance program administered by the Department of Commerce. The second benefit is an income tax credit for eligible individuals administered by the Department of Revenue.

• Our audit estimated that about 150 individuals may have participated in both incentives for this program. However, this was based on an estimate because Revenue and Commerce didn’t collect data on participants in the same way to be able to match them for a more precise answer.

• To address this finding, we recommended Revenue and Commerce should develop a way to identify individuals participating in both parts of the Rural Opportunity Zone program to enhance the quality of future program evaluations.

As of October 2025, Revenue and Commerce implemented the recommendation.

• We spoke with agency staff and requested and reviewed documentation to verify their implementation of the recommendation from our 2023 audit. Those documents included the FY25-26 program application, a screenshot of the database, internal emails, and a copy of the program participant report that Commerce sent to Revenue. It also included reviewing inter-agency correspondence between the two agencies. We also spoke with officials to further understand how to interpret the documentation provided.

• Figure 2 shows our results.

Figure 2. Revenue and Commerce have implemented the recommendation.
Recommendation	Status	Summary
Commerce and Revenue should develop a way to identify individuals participating in both parts of the program to enhance the quality of future program evaluations..	Implemented	Commerce provided their internal communications planning to add social security numbers to the application and annual attestation forms. They also provided the FY25-26 program application, which included the added SSN field. We reviewed the report Commerce generated for Revenue showing SSNs were collected for new and ongoing participants in the program.
		Commerce provided emails showing they sent Revenue the report in February and April 2025. Internal emails from Revenue indicated they would compare the Commerce information with their data on rural opportunity zone program income tax credit recipients.
Source: LPA review of relevant documents
Kansas Legislative Division of Post Audit

The Secretary of State’s Office implemented 1 of 3 recommendations from our 2023 audit of election security procedures.

In July 2023, we published an audit reviewing Kansas’s policies and practices to ensure secure elections.

• The audit, Reviewing Kansas’s Procedures for Election Security, Part 2, evaluated whether county election offices had adequate procedures to ensure the accuracy and security of voting machines, ballots, storage units, and devices used during elections. The audit found the 15 counties we reviewed had some security practices that were adequate and others that were inadequate, compared to 55 best practices and state laws. The audit also found that none of the 15 counties had adequate written policies. Several findings contributed to this conclusion:

1. Each of Kansas’s 105 counties has a county election officer responsible for overseeing all elections in their county, including creating security policies.
   
2. Election processes vary across counties. That’s because state law gives county election officers discretion and flexibility over how to run elections in their counties. Also, Kansas has only a few high-level election security-related laws and regulations related to the 5 best practice categories we reviewed.
   
3. The Secretary of State doesn’t proactively provide county election officers with state-level guidance or make recommendations about minimum election security expectations.

• To address these findings, we made 3 recommendations to the Secretary of State’s Office including providing example security policies, enhanced training, and guidance on ballot containers.

As of October 2025, the Secretary of State implemented 1 of the 3 recommendations.

• We spoke with agency officials and requested and reviewed documentation to verify their implementation of the 3 recommendations from our 2023 audit. Those documents included written policies and procedures samples, and copies of training presentations for county election officials. We also spoke with officials to further understand how to interpret the documentation provided.

• Figure 3 shows our results.

Figure 3. The Secretary of State implemented 2 recommendations, partially or in whole, and did not implement 1 recommendation.
Recommendation	Status	Summary
The Secretary of State’s office should create example election security policies and standardized forms to offer to county election officers to use at their discretion. The Secretary of State’s office should consider working with officials from counties with stronger practices to adapt these practices for all counties to use..	Partially Implemented	The Secretary of State’s Office has shared example election security standardized documents with election offices. Those forms, reports and checklists were developed by county election officers or election consultants but weren’t readily usable forms. Specifically, the 6 documents we reviewed would need to be changed to be filled out. Also, several documents included information from the originating office or referred to old elections which would need to be fixed by each office choosing to use the form. Lastly, none of the forms we reviewed were policy templates or examples.
		The Secretary of State staff provided testimonial evidence that the counties with stronger practices have shared their election forms for the Secretary of State staff to adapt and provide advice to other counties upon request.
The Secretary of State’s office should use county election officers’ annual training or new certification program to train them in the importance, proper implementation, and effective oversight of election security statutes and best practices. This would include guidance on which security best practices counties should implement as a baseline..	Implemented	We reviewed the presentation from the 2025 annual training conference which showed updates to state and federal election executive orders and touched on election security.
		Staff also provided an outline of their new certification program – “Kansas Certified Election Official.” That program includes 9 courses, 3 of which cover election security (Managing the Voting Process and Post-Election Activities) and cybersecurity (Technology in Elections). We reviewed the course presentations and determined they covered most (15/17) of the best practices subcategories the original audit identified. The course on Managing the Voting Process includes a slide with “Suggested Security Procedures”, which could be considered guidance on baseline security practices.
The Secretary of State’s office should provide guidance to county election officers on what materials to seal in ballot containers and what materials should not be sealed so they are available for public review..	Not Implemented	Secretary of State officials told us they provided a copy of the current statute and held discussions with county election officers on weekly phone calls on September 25, 2024, and June 4, 2025. Officials also stated that a portion of question-and-answer sessions with county election officials at annual conferences in 2024 and 2025 were focused on this statute. However, they did not provide any guidance materials other than state statute. Further, we expected written guidance distributed to all election officers. That’s because not all election officials may be part of the calls and conferences.
Source: LPA review of relevant documents
Kansas Legislative Division of Post Audit

The Department of Revenue implemented 1 of 4 recommendations from the 2024 Motor Vehicle Sales Tax audit

In April 2024, we published an audit evaluating the adequacy of the Department of Revenue’s (KDOR) processes related to motor vehicle sales taxes.

• The audit, Reviewing the Department of Revenue’s Procedures to Ensure Correct Payment of Sales and Compensating Use Taxes on Motor Vehicle Sales found that KDOR had procedures to help ensure dealerships remit vehicle taxes. However, KDOR was missing key procedures to help ensure counties remit vehicle taxes. Several findings contributed to these conclusions, including:

1. KDOR was missing 2 procedures related to monitoring and enforcement of counties: KDOR did not have progressively increasing enforcement procedures for counties that didn’t remit properly. Second, KDOR did not utilize county registration data to identify questionable sales prices or tax exemptions. 
    
2. KDOR lacked written procedures for most of the processes we reviewed for the report.
   
3. KDOR’s vehicle registration database had significant data entry errors. This prevented KDOR and us from doing state-wide analyses.
   
4. KDOR had guidance documents with examples of how to collect and remit taxes, but they were not available on KDOR’s dealership portal. KDOR provided training for new dealerships but did not provide reoccurring training for existing dealerships to update them on requirements.

• To address these findings, we made 4 recommendations to KDOR, including adding additional procedures, documenting all standard procedures, sharing information on portal and cleaning up data.
  

As of October 2025, KDOR implemented 1 of 4 recommendations.

• We spoke with agency staff and requested and reviewed documentation to assess the implementation status of the 4 recommendations from our 2024 audit. Those documents included written policies and procedures, reports, training and guidance documents, internal and external emails, and screenshots of the dealership portal website. We also spoke with KDOR officials to further understand how to interpret the documentation provided.
  
• Figure 4 shows our results.

Figure 4. KDOR implemented 1 recommendation and partially implemented the other 3.
Recommendation	Status	Summary
KDOR should create and implement the missing procedures related to the monitoring and enforcement of counties: (a) Progressively increasing enforcement actions (b) Use MOVRS data to identify suspicious sales prices or tax exemptions .	Partially Implemented	KDOR has implemented a monthly report identifying counties with outstanding unremitted sales taxes, and we saw emails to 3 counties to follow up on certain adjusted journal entries. However, KDOR didn’t provide procedures for progressively stringent enforcements for counties with continued delinquent filings.
		KDOR has started a pilot program to identify commercial vehicles without sales tax to verify the exemption was properly used through their commercial motor vehicle system. KDOR staff stated they plan to use MOVRS system to identify suspicious exemptions for personal vehicles following this pilot.
KDOR should develop and implement a process to improve the accuracy of existing and ongoing vehicle registration data submitted through MOVRS.	Partially Implemented	KDOR is working with counties and their IT department to improve MOVRS data accuracy by identifying issues, system updates, and workarounds. KDOR has developed a new vehicle registration report from MOVRS in response to LPA’s data reliability concerns from the original audit. The new report includes additional fields, and our review of a one-month report found it likely has fewer duplicates than the original audit identified.
KDOR should provide the current, up-to-date sales tax guidance document to the dealership portal. They should also provide tax guidance updates in the portal as those are made. They should consider if there are points in time where they should offer dealerships a chance to retake KDOR training.	Implemented	The department has added Publication KS-1526, Business Taxes for Motor Vehicle Transactions, to the dealership portal and we saw evidence of recent portal notifications providing additional tax guidance updates. The Dealer Licensing Training Guide is also posted on the dealership portal, which includes some tax guidance. KDOR told us that having the training guide on the portal allows dealers to “re-train” as needed, and that they have considered adding a virtual training option.
KDOR should formally document all existing and new procedures related to motor vehicle training, guidance, monitoring, and enforcement.	Partially Implemented	KDOR’s has created a written procedure for the pilot program reviewing suspicious commercial vehicles exemptions and the new enforcement procedure to notify counties of delinquent or incorrect payments. These relate to KDOR’s responsibilities for monitoring and enforcement to ensure applicable taxes are submitted to the state.
		KDOR also provided a guidance document for dealers to register with the tax center and access the dealer portal. Lastly, KDOR updated 2 business tax guidance documents in July 2025, which count as guidance for businesses about tax processes.
		We also reviewed 9 internal job aid process documents used by the Retailers’ Sales Tax Team for monitoring and enforcement. These processes apply to all business tax return processes – including, but not limited, to motor vehicle sales and use taxes remitted by dealerships.
		Based on the evidence we received, KDOR has not yet documented all existing internal processes around clear delegation of roles and responsibilities and guidance about who to contact with questions or share information. This was identified in the original audit and contributed to the finding about lack of written procedures.
Source: LPA review of relevant documents
Kansas Legislative Division of Post Audit

Recommendations

We did not make any recommendations for this audit. 

Agency Response

On October 20, 2025, we provided the draft audit report to the 5 groundwater districts, the Secretary of State, and Kansas Departments of Revenue and Commerce. Because we did not make any recommendations, written responses from these entities were optional.

The Secretary of State was the only entity who chose to submit a response, and it is below.  Agency officials generally agreed with our findings and conclusions. 

Secretary of State Response

Dear Ms. Clarke,

The Secretary of State’s office, having provided guidance in the manner and format in which county election offices are accustomed to receiving, will provide an update to the Kansas Election Standards specifically referencing the state statute. Although there is already guidance provided on ballots being placed in sealed containers and stored until the time of destruction, an emphasis will be placed on the statute, and the nuances different voting systems and solutions have on effectively following the statute.

Respectfully submitted,

Bryan Caskey
Director of Elections

Appendix A – Cited References

This appendix lists the major publications we relied on for this report.

1. Evaluating Groundwater Management Districts’ Efforts to Conserve Water (February, 2023). Kansas Legislative Division of Post Audit.

• Reviewing Kansas’s Procedures for Election Security, Part (July, 2023). Kansas Legislative Division of Post Audit.

• Evaluating the ROZ Program (August, 2023). Kansas Legislative Division of Post Audit.

• Reviewing the Department of Revenue’s Procedures to Ensure Correct Payment of Sales and Compensating Use Taxes on Motor Vehicle Sales (April, 2024). Kansas Legislative Division of Post Audit.