The School District of Philadelphia - Organizational Assessment and Transformation to the Auditing Services Department
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Challenge
The SDP is the eighth largest school district in the United States serving over 210,000 students with approximately 24,500 professional and nonprofessional employees. Over the last several years, SDP experienced a period of severe financial and academic distress that resulted in a December 2001 agreement between the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the City of Philadelphia to establish a partnership to address SDP's pressing financial and academic needs.
In 2002, the School Reform Commission appointed Mr. Paul Vallas as Chief Executive Officer of SDP. Since that time, Mr. Vallas has built a management team that is committed to implementing a series of management improvement initiatives aimed at providing a "thorough and efficient system of public education." To this end, SDP sought the assistance of Bronner to supplement and enhance the various internal management improvement initiatives now underway. Bronner was tasked with comparing "best practices" for internal audit functions against current SDP internal audit practices, and delivering specific recommendations to enhance SDP's internal audit function's effectiveness.
Solution
Bronner developed financial and compliance audit programs and procedures by using "best practices" for internal audit functions within governmental organizations. Next, Bronner developed approaches for the conduct of audit activities. After new audit programs and approaches for the conduct of audit activities were developed, Bronner initiated a change management program to successfully transition to the new organization. Throughout development of the transformed Internal Audit function, Bronner performed change management activities to maximize the performance of internal auditors and reduce potential resistance to change. During this phase, Bronner developed templates for internal audit reports, findings, recommendations, and follow-up reviews.
Results
The transformed Auditing Services Department now has the tools to efficiently serve as an independent function within the School District to examine and evaluate its activities, including the adequacy and effectiveness of the School District's system of internal controls and the quality of performance. Auditing Services now has an audit plan in place that addresses the highest areas of risk within the School District. In addition, SDP was able to realize operating efficiencies by reassigning staff duties from transaction-based tasks to value-added audit activities.
