| SUMMARY OF: | A Special Report on the Department of Commerce, Community, and Economic Development, Regulatory Commission of Alaska FY 13 Annual Report, May 16, 2014 |
Purpose of the Report
In accordance with Title 24 of the Alaska Statutes and a special request by the Legislative Budget and Audit Committee, we have conducted a performance audit of the Regulatory Commission of Alaska’s (commission or RCA) FY 13 annual report.
Report Conclusions
Overall, the audit found the commission accurately reported on the status of utility dockets, pipeline dockets, statutory extensions, and complaint resolution and consumer outreach performance measures. Data reported in the FY 13 annual report for tariff filings, regulatory dockets, and the timeline performance measure was not reliable due to errors in the underlying case management system data.
Findings and Recommendations
Recommendation No. 1
The RCA chair should continue to implement and enforce written procedures to ensure case management system data is consistent, complete, and accurately reflected in the annual report.
RCA’s FY 13 annual report contains errors in tariff filing and regulatory docket information. An examination of 75 of 318 tariff filings and two of 12 regulatory dockets open or opened during FY 13 found case management system data error rates of 21 percent and 50 percent respectively.
Although commission management developed written procedures for entering tariff filing and docket data during FY 12, testing results showed procedures were not consistently applied. The data errors can be attributed to a lack of adequate training and documentation of data review and lack of ongoing quality reviews.