Anyone who can help,

Our Board recently challenged our classification of what is a "critical issue." They 
believe their roll is strictly related to dealing with "material impacts of a 
financial or legal nature." To me their approach is too related to external audit. I 
disagree with their definition.  When a significant internal control is missing it can 
also be classified as "Critical" without quantifying a financial or legal impact.

For example, if metrics governing employee performance in a critical billing follow-up 
function give employees incentives to defer or delay issue resolution,  result in 
perpetual errors, inefficiencies, and an unquantifyed financial impact, we find that 
to be a "critical issue." However under our current process our Board defines that 
issue as a medium risk and a need for process improvement. The only difference I see 
is that we have not taken the time to quantify specific financial losses due to the 
scope of the review.

Many things lead to financial and legal exposure:
*       Weak governance
*       Missing controls
*       Poor training
*       inefficient processes
*       understaffed areas

If anyone can share how they define a "critical issue" that should be addressed by the 
Board, I would be very interested in your definition.

Thanks for any help.

Dan Clayton
303 436-8821
Internal Auditor, CPA
Office of Integrity
DHHA


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