Raven’s Head Ranch was a gated community in Illinois that was self-governed by volunteers who made up all of the committees that made the decisions for the community. This specific case was brought about when a select few proposed a fire department for the town. Over the course of about two years, members of certain committees utilized their membership or leadership in other committees to achieve their wants for the community fire department. Internal controls of the community of Raven Head Ranch are brought into question if there was a legit system or if it was utilized to its potential.
Internal controls is defined as a process, effected by an entity’s board of directors, management, and other personnel, designed to provide reasonable assurance
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regarding the achievement of objectives relating to operations, reporting, and compliance. The Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO) also identifies operations, reporting, and compliance within the integrated framework objectives. The question upon this case is if this current system of controls that Raven Head Ranch has address the objectives identified by COSO. The first objective would be operations, which is defined as the controls that pertain to effectiveness and efficiency of the entity’s operations.
Raven Head Ranch’s current system did not identify this objective. Segregation of duties plays a huge role in the fact that RHR had none when it came to the committees and leadership of governance of the community. Two of the BoD members were adamant about a fire department to the point where they bypassed all the operations and procedures to get their fire department. The lack of segregation of duties was evident because after not getting approval for the VFD, the BoD, which the two individuals wanting the VFD were on, granted permission to purchase emergency radios. Many members of BoD, Metro, and VFD served on numerous committees that needed approval from those specific committees, causing even further segregation of duties within the community. Management override of control also affected the operations objective of internal controls, by Sam, community manager, instructing Mable to write checks for more than amount …show more content…
necessary. Secondly, reporting of internal and external financial and non-financial in regards to timeliness and reliability. RHR did not have the objective of reporting enforced in its internal controls. They had an approval process for large checks that were greater than $1,000, but it was not followed. The invoices or checks had to be approved by a BoD member and then approved by the vice president of the BoD. The bookkeeper would receive a copy and charge the verified expense account and then prepare the check. The final step was the check had to be signed by two members of the BoD. During the years of 2007 to 2009, the audit team found checks over $1,000 with no signatures besides the community manager, as well as the community manager approved all checks, signed them, and charged the accounts to designated areas without approval. Also, the BoD made no attempt to stop these transactions. Finally, the last objective of internal controls is compliance.
Compliance is pertaining to the adherence to laws and regulations that the company is subject. Raven Head Ranch did not follow this objective when they were writing checks approved by the same person and putting them in unapproved projects, for example the Volunteer Fire Department. The VFD had been receiving funds from misappropriate accounts for three years. Fifty individual disbursements were taken from the community checking account and had no proper recording, just charged to random accounts, which breaks the regulations and laws of proper accounting. One of the BoD members, Sam, was not even a resident of RHR and was on board supervising the employees with no legal right
to. Overall, Raven Head Ranch’s current system of controls did not address the objectives necessary for internal controls. Raven Head Ranch’s operations were messed up from the start when members of the community served on committees that were separate entities serving the same town. Many of the errors of internal controls followed after the segregation of duties was nonexistent. The reporting objective was there, but not enforced to its potential. Again with the segregation of duties, Sam, the community manager, overrode the process and no one questioned it. Lastly, compliance within the community of laws and regulations was not present until the new board members took over. Over the course of about three years, fraud and many accounts of inaccurate reporting occurred within the community of Raven Head Ranch, due to the lack of objectives in the internal control.
The fourth chapter of City Politics by Dennis R. Judd & Todd Swanstrom covers the rise of "Reform Politics" with many local governments during the first half of the 1900s as a way to combat the entrenched political machines that took control of many large city governments in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Over the course of the chapter, Judd & Swanstrom quickly cover the history of the "reform movement" with different examples of how the reform movement affected city politics in different areas.
Burns, James MacGregor, J.W Peltason, Thomas E. Cronin, and David B. Magleby. Government By The People. 01-02 Edition ed. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2002
The compliance plan should include a code of conduct. By establishing a code of conduct, the organization establishes a commitment to ethical and accurate coding practices that will follow all regulatory guidelines set forth.
Internal controls are in place to protect entities against theft from dishonest workers and outside predators. They are also an accurate series of checks and balances and are in place to find discrepancies.
On Monday, April 13th, 2009, I visited the Culver City city council meeting, and found that they operate using a council-manager form of government. For a city with a population of about 38,000, this type of governmental structure is fairly common, and I was not surprised to see it in action in a community where the median household income is around $56,000 a year. Culver City is also a culturally rich community with a 60 percent Caucasian population, and a quarter of the residents are either of African American or Asian decent. The mayor, D. Scott Malsin, is one of five members on the council, and his term as mayor is on a rotating basis. Having been to a Hermosa Beach city council meeting with a similar council-manager structure, I knew what to expect.
Internal locus of control is how you as a person dictates how their work or personal life is going to go. Meaning the results of something is based on ones behaviors and actions. For example, getting the new job promotion and you knowing that you got the job for your hard work and not because you think, it is out of pure luck.
Politics or politicking is a game that is more ostensible and reserved for the political arena; however, metaphorically, much of the political discourse can also be found within organizations. Politics in organizations, then, is design for groups to reconcile differences between interests, conflicts, and power (Morgan, 2006). The case study to be analyze (Cutting Back at City Hall) is one that illustrates all three aspects of interests, conflicts, and power as the City of Smithville, the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), the International Association of Firefighters (IAF), and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) deliberate the city’s proposed budget.
The Coop has no major market research to go off of in order to effectively position them in a changing market. R&D doesn't seem to be supported by good research in the market segments.
The Loveland Fire Rescue and Authority (LFRA) is getting ready to go through a change in leadership. Our current Fire Chief, Randy Mirowski, is getting ready to take the next step of his life into retirement. This paper is going to define why this change in leadership could potentially be a problem, provide a background of the culture at LFRA, suggest an alternative solution to the problem and then suggest how LFRA can manage the potential resistance that could be experienced in this change process.
In this approach, the focus will be on the internal control objectives so that the control design can be well assessed. First, the auditor will define the control measures and objectives and then find out which measures already installed meet the objectives (Tyrer, 1994).
The purpose of the CMP is to solidify their organizational culture of integrity, ensuring that every person acts honestly and ethically in conducting everyday activities and making decisions. The CMP has three areas of focus: “The Compliance Management System, prevention of unlawful activities, and response to changes in regulations” (People 30). Throughout all departments are compliance teams that specialize in protecting the reputation of the company as well as individuals in the company through a process of “prevention, monitoring, and post-management” (People 30). Figure 1, below, is a graphic from the 2015 Samsung Electronics Sustainability Report, which illustrates how compliance management is incorporated throughout the organization (People
Legal issues are a necessary function of the fire service as with any business, therefore long term strategies must be established that ensure compliance with mandated regulations and laws. The legal issues a fire department may face can fill volumes of books, perhaps even a library, however a plan of action must be established to avoid legal repercussions for the fire department and/or its members. Common legal issues should be addressed within the fire department standard operating guidelines or procedures and newly arising issues should be viewed carefully before a plan of action is developed. Court decisions have been rendered that negatively affect jurisdictions, fire departments, and its members in ways that range from fines up to criminal prosecution. It is the responsibility of the fire department to be a good steward of the community and tax payer funds and therefore, develop policies and procedures that will responsibly protect the jurisdiction, fire department, community, and its members from legal consequences of violating laws and regulations.
As the public administrator moves forward from the postmodern to the modern era of public administration, there is a greater need to maintain responsible conduct within public organizations. The reasoning behind this as we move through the modern times, this era itself is beginning to change, into the Praetorian Time, which is a time of major transition from old to new. These times signify that not only has change come, within public organizations, the conversion from postmodern, modern towards the Praetorian Times resulted in throwing out the old ways of handling organizations and establishing a complete new set of rules. The question remains for the public administrator, with all these changes occurring internally and externally, what,
Controlling is the fourth management function and its purpose is straightforward- to make sure that actual performance meets or surpasses objectives. It is well used for decision making and problem solving. Effective control depends on other management functions and it gives feedback to them. These functions are planning, organizing and leading. Planning sets directions and allocates resources. Organizing puts people and material resources together in working combinations. Leading motivates people to use these resources in the best way. Basically, the function of controlling is to make sure that the right things happen in a right time and in the right way.Control helps that overall directions of individuals and groups are consistent with short-range and long-range organizational plans. Also, it helps to ensure that objectives and accomplishments are coherent with one another throughout an organization. Moreover, it helps maintaining fulfillment with essential organizational rules and policies. Good example where we can see role of control is in helping to protect individual rights to become equivalent with employment opportunities at work. The control process practiced by managers includes four steps: 1) establish objectives and standards 2) measure actual performance 3) compare results with objectives and standards and 4) take actions if necessary1. The controlling process starts with establishing performance objectives and standards which means that the controlling process begins with planning. Performance objectives should be defined and associated with specific measurement standards for determining how well they are accomplished. Standards are the targets of performance. The next step of the control process would be measur...
It is not detected, prevented or modified on a timely basis by client’s internal control system. It will occur in account balance, disclosure or class of transactions. This risk is a function of the effectiveness of the design and operation of an entity’s internal control. The control risk may not be zero, it may be minimal. Some control risk may always exist, it is due to the inherent limitations of internal control.