Audit Committee R 4240 261026

Knoxville Community Media’s Audit Committee met on October 27, 2026, and reviewed Knox County Internal Audit’s procurement-card performance audit. The audit found the program generally effective, with 277 accounts and $36.6 million in purchases during FY2026; the county had received about $2.7 million in rebates over five years. Auditors found receipts and approvals for sampled purchases, but recommended updating the P-card policy, clarifying that card use does not replace procurement-code requirements, improving contract-document access, and strengthening review of card limits and vendor coding. About 14% of transactions—roughly $161,000—were coded to generic, unregistered vendors, making spending harder to track; Finance said it had recently changed its process so vendors would be registered. Committee discussion also raised geographic card controls, merchant-category restrictions, fees versus rebates, and oversight of gift-card programs; Finance offered to provide information on those programs and evaluate the control and cost questions.

The committee also reviewed an audit of the Grants Department, which administered approximately $96 million in FY2026 funding. Auditors reported one low-level finding: two reimbursements to TEMA fell outside deadlines in the funding agreement because of a clerical error, and identified inconsistent site-visit language in some agreements; the department concurred and planned corrections. Separately, the committee approved a one-year extension of the external audit contract rather than seeking quotes, with the matter to proceed to County Commission. The committee also discussed a forthcoming detention-facility audit that will examine capacity and costs, including the incremental cost of additional inmates; no construction decision or spending authorization was made.