A biennial report from the California State Auditor released Tuesday finds once again that computer-processed data in some of the state’s information systems isn’t reliable enough for state auditing purposes.
The report summarizes the reliability of data from state systems tested in 2014 and 2015. Of a total of 78 data reliability assessments, 13 were deemed "sufficiently reliable," 22 were found "not sufficiently reliable" and 43 were of undetermined reliability.
The U.S. Government Accountability Agency (GAO) requires states to report once every two years on the reliability of data used in support of audit findings, conclusions and recommendations. Not sufficiently reliable data indicates "significant errors or incompleteness in some of or all the key data elements."
Systems that the State Auditor said had sufficient data during 2014 and 2015 were the Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education’s data maintained in the Department of Finance’s California State Accounting and Reporting System, the Department of Housing and Community Development’s Cumulative Propositions 46 and 1C Bond Awards, the State Bar of California’s Discipline Case Tracking System, and the State Controller’s Office (State Controller) Budgetary/Legal Basis System.
The State Auditor has issued such reports on data reliability since 2008. For the 2012-13 reporting period, 19 data reliability assessments were "sufficiently reliable," 17 were not and another 17 were of undetermined reliability.
"Although we disclosed these data reliability assessments and any data limitations we identified in the audit reports that we issued during 2014 and 2015, this report is intended to call attention both to areas of concern, where important data are not always reliable, and to instances in which information has been reliable," the State Auditor wrote Tuesday in a letter to the governor.
