[Vendorsmi] BEP Audit and Article

[Joe Sontag]

Here is the long-awaited report from the Office of the Auditor General on the Business Enterprise Program, in PDF and TXT formats.  You may find the article shown below from mlive.com of interest as well.

Joe Sontag

>From mlive.com.
Mark Rothenhauser, 55, operates the snack bar at the state Capitol.
He's been participating in the state's Business Enterprise Program for
people who are blind and visually impaired for six years. Melissa
Anders | MLive
LANSING, MI - The state did not properly manage a program that helps
blind people run vending facilities in government buildings, according
to an audit report that estimates the program improperly spent about a
quarter million dollars.
A report released Tuesday by Michigan's Auditor General found that the
Michigan Commission for the Blind did not effectively monitor the
finances, contracting and inventory for its Business Enterprise
Program. The program offers licenses to blind and visually impaired
people to operate vending machines, cafeterias, snack bars, carts and
other food services in state and federal buildings, highway rest stops
and visitor centers.
The audit generally covered Oct. 2008 through July 2011, when the
program was still managed by the Michigan Commission for the Blind.
The Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) realized
there were several issues with the vending program and requested the
audit.
Gov. Rick Snyder responded to broader issues surrounding the
Commission for the Blind with an executive order that replaced the
commission with the Bureau of Services for Blind Persons in October.
Ed Rodgers took over as director of the bureau last month with the
mandate to make improvements.
"While there's issues and problems we need to correct, the public
needs to be reassured that this administration is not wasting
taxpayers' dollars and that we are running an effective and efficient
program," Rodgers said. "We're doing what we're supposed to be doing."
The Business Enterprise Program had eight staff members and more than
80 licensees who operated about 400 sites throughout the state as of
July 2011.
Operators give 10 percent of their profits to the commission to pay
for expenses such as new equipment and retirement funds.
"The public needs to be reassured that this administration is not
wasting taxpayers' dollars." - Ed Rodgers
The audit estimates that the commission improperly spent $254,000 in
operator fees from Oct. 2008 through July 2011 on miscellaneous
program expenses that were not in accordance with state code.
The commission also did not effectively confirm operators' monthly
sales reports, meaning the state couldn't make sure that it properly
calculated and paid retirement contributions, pension payments and
operator fees, the audit found. Even though the vendors are
independent contractors, the program pays out such benefits.
That finding didn't surprise Mark Rothenhauser, who operates the snack
bar at the state Capitol. He sells pizza slices, popcorn, soda and
other snacks from a small shop located on the ground level of the
building.
"An operator can basically pull a number out of the air and report
that as sales," he said. "There's not a mechanism in place to
authenticate what the operator reports as sales is actually their
sales. So if you go with that, you don't know if they're paying the
correct set-aside fee."
Rodgers said he set aside $150,000 to create a new data program for
the entire bureau that will keep better track of vending sales and net
income. It should be in place early next year.
Other audit findings dealt with deficiencies in monitoring equipment
inventory, contracts and operator assistance.
The bureau is completing an inventory of its equipment, such as
coolers and microwaves, and is setting up performance measures for
staff members who assist operators.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/vendorsmi_nfbnet.org/attachments/20121127/f1b6c6bb/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: BEP Audit.txt
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/vendorsmi_nfbnet.org/attachments/20121127/f1b6c6bb/attachment.txt>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: r641023011.pdf
Type: application/octet-stream
Size: 1620057 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/vendorsmi_nfbnet.org/attachments/20121127/f1b6c6bb/attachment.obj>