Summary

This audit of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services focused primarily on budgetary controls, "No Sales Solicitation Calls" revenues and expenditures, procurement of goods and services, land acquisitions, information resources management, citrus inspection fees, and medfly and citrus canker detection. For each of these areas, our audit included examinations of various transactions (as well as events and conditions) during the period March 1, 1997, through February 28, 1998. We conducted our audit in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards and applicable standards contained in Government Auditing Standards issued by the Comptroller General of the United States.

Matters coming to our attention relating to noncompliance with various guidelines and those relating to significant deficiencies in the design or operation of the internal control for those operations audited are as follows:

Plant Pests Detection Program

Section 570.32 and Chapter 581, Florida Statutes, authorize the Department to protect the plant industry of the State through the detection, control, and eradication of those plant pests that pose a threat to the various types of plants and trees marketed for sale in the State. The Department’s Division of Plant Industry (Division) has been assigned the responsibility for the implementation of laws, rules, regulations, and various programs pertaining to plants and plant pests.

Two of the most significant ongoing programs for the detection and eradication of plant pests involve fruit flies (primarily the citrus medfly) and citrus canker. Department expenditures for the medfly program totaled $1.7 million during the 1996-97 fiscal year and $10 million during the 1997-98 fiscal year. Department expenditures for the citrus canker program totaled $5.6 million during the 1996-97 fiscal year and $11.9 million during the 1997-98 fiscal year.

The failure to quickly identify and eradicate medfly and citrus canker infestations has historically resulted in expensive eradication programs, increased citrus production costs, and loss of access to citrus export markets due to quarantine actions. In response to the ramifications of these infestations, the Department has adopted policies and procedures designed to lead to the early detection and eradication of medflies and citrus canker. Our tests of selected procedures disclosed several areas in which improvements are needed:

• Division Inspection Activities Database. The Division does not maintain a comprehensive database of its inspection activities. Absent a comprehensive database containing information on all known areas and entities subject to Division inspections, the Department lacks a means for ensuring that all areas and entities are scheduled for inspection, scheduled inspections are performed, and necessary corrective actions have been taken. (See paragraphs 29 through 32.)

• Medfly Detection. The Division’s Florida Fruit Fly Detection Manual (Manual) establishes procedures requiring the placement of various types of traps for detecting fruit fly infestations. The Manual specifies the number and type of traps required to be placed in an area according to an assessed risk factor. The Department did not always meet its medfly trap placement goals. The failure to meet established goals could reduce the effectiveness of the program to detect, contain, and eradicate fruit fly infestations in a timely manner. (See paragraphs 33 through 37.)

• Documentation of Inspections and Corrective Actions. When the Department becomes aware of the existence of a fruit fly infestation, the Department may adopt emergency rules for the purpose of containing the outbreak. Pursuant to the emergency rules, compliance agreements are executed between the Department or the USDA and persons who market citrus plants and products. The purpose of the agreements is to obtain the citrus plant and product marketers’ cooperation in the detection and destruction of fruit flies. Our tests disclosed that the Division has not established procedures to define the inspection frequency necessary to determine conformance with the terms of compliance agreements and has not fully implemented procedures for documenting actions taken to correct violations of the terms of the agreements. Additionally, the Division has not documented the supervisory review of inspector activities. The failure to define the frequency of the inspections, properly document the corrective actions taken, and document the supervisory review of inspector activities may result in delays in effectively enforcing the terms of compliance agreements. (See paragraphs 39 through 43.)

• Citrus Canker Inspections. The Division maintained two field offices, located at Palmetto in Manatee County and Miami in Dade County, for the operation of the citrus canker program. We selected the Palmetto field office for our review of Division procedures for citrus canker detection and eradication. The Palmetto field office’s inspections database needs to be more timely updated to record the inspections performed and control actions taken. More frequent updating of this database will allow management to rely on the database when monitoring the effectiveness of control actions taken to contain/eradicate citrus canker infestations. (See paragraphs 45 through 48.)

Citrus Inspection Fees

In accordance with Section 570.48, Florida Statutes, the Division of Fruit and Vegetables (Division) located in Winter Haven, Florida, performs duties relating to the inspection and certification of fresh citrus fruit shipments. The Division issues certificates of inspection to entities (canneries and packing houses) to document that inspections have been performed. To cover the cost of providing inspection services, entities receiving inspection services pay to the Department, in accordance with Section 570.481, Florida Statutes, citrus inspection fees set annually by rule of the Department. The Department collected $12.4 million in citrus inspection fees during the 1996-97 fiscal year.

In audit report No. 13080, dated November 17, 1997, we noted that the Division had not established procedures to reconcile, and did not reconcile, citrus inspection certificate and/or manifest forms issued to canneries and packing houses to the completed inspection certificates and/or manifests returned to the Division. Our current audit disclosed that the Division performed what it termed "certificate audits" to account for the sequential number of certificate and/or manifest forms returned to the Division by Division inspectors; however, the "certificate audits" did not include the reconciliation of the completed inspection certificates and/or manifests returned to the Division with those issued to the canneries and packing houses. Since the completed certificates and/or manifests returned are the source documents used to assess citrus inspection fees, failure to reconcile the documents returned with those issued could result in a failure to assess and collect all revenues for inspections performed by Division inspectors. (See paragraphs 49 through 56.)

"No Sales Solicitation Calls"

Section 501.059, Florida Statutes, directs the Department to compile and maintain a "No Sales Solicitation Calls" listing for residential, mobile, or telephonic paging device telephone subscribers. In general, the law prohibits those attempting to sell consumer goods and services by telephone from calling telephone subscribers whose numbers appear on the "No Sales Solicitation Calls" listing. During the 1996-97 fiscal year, the Department collected of record a total of $680,506 in "No Sales Solicitation Calls" fees, including $139,053 in telemarketing fees, $369,395 in initial and renewal fees from "No Sales Solicitation Calls" listing subscribers, $172,000 in administrative fines, and $58 in miscellaneous revenues. The amounts collected were to be deposited in the General Inspection Trust Fund. According to Department accounting records, the related expenditures of the Trust Fund for the same period were $245,911.

Revenues. The Department did not perform periodic reconciliations of the subscriber fee revenues collected, as recorded in Department accounting records, to the revenues reflected by the consumer records included on the "No Sales Solicitation Calls" listing. The absence of such reconciliations may allow errors or irregularities to escape timely detection. (See paragraphs 60 through 62.)

Consumer Complaints. Guidelines governing the timeliness of the Bureau of Consumer Protection’s response to subscriber complaints could be improved by reducing the number of days allowed between the date of Bureau receipt of the complaint and the date of telephone solicitor notification of the complaint. The failure to timely resolve complaints may lead to the Bureau’s failure to identify unregistered telephone solicitors; subscribers who have not for some reason been added to the "No Sales Solicitation Calls" (SOL) listing, although the necessary fees have been paid; and telephone solicitors who have disregarded the "No Sales Solicitation Calls" law. (See paragraphs 63 through 67.)

Salaries and Benefits Appropriations

The Department made entries in the Cooperative Personnel Employment Subsystem (COPES) to rotate existing employees through positions that had actually remained continuously vacant for an extended period of time. These COPES entries may have made it more difficult for the Executive Office of the Governor and the Legislature to readily identify long-term vacant positions. Information on long-term vacant positions is essential to these oversight entities’ full consideration of the Department’s human resource and related budgetary needs. (See paragraphs 68 through 71.)

FLAIR Access Security

The Department did not always timely delete former employees’ access to the Florida Accounting Information Resource Subsystem (FLAIR). Thirteen employees, assigned to the Bureau of Finance and Accounting, terminated employment with the Department between October 1996 and November 1997; however, deletion of the FLAIR access control codes for 12 of these employees did not occur until 7 to 287 days after their termination dates (99-day average). Absent the timely deletion of former employees’ FLAIR access control codes, there is an increased risk that unauthorized use or manipulation of the FLAIR files, should it occur, would not be timely detected. (See paragraphs 72 through 76.)

The Commissioner of Agriculture's written response to the audit findings and recommendations included in audit report No. 13342 is presented as Exhibit C.