AUDIT COMMITTEE SUMMARY
June 16, 2020
Audit of Development Services Department
Accela Land Development, Permit, Inspection, and Compliance Management System
Report Issued May 7, 2020
Audit Objective
Determine if application controls for the Accela system are adequate and data is accurate and reliable.
Background
The Development Services Department (DSD) is responsible for coordinating land and building development throughout the City. In partnership with other City departments, DSD helps homeowners, business owners, and those in the commercial industry plan and execute development projects.
For years, DSD has utilized disparate systems to deliver permit, inspection, land development and code enforcement services to their customers. These systems became outdated and were unable to easily adapt to DSD's changing business needs. In 2012, a business need to replace the outdated systems was identified and BuildSA formally initiated. BuildSA is the designated name of the project or software system that will either replace or integrate with many of the systems used today by DSD. The provider or vendor of the system is Accela.
Due to the complexity of DSD business and the amount of resources required to deploy a system like this, the project was divided into two phases that follow the development process:
* Phase 1 includes activities associated with horizontal development such as zoning, platting and construction inspections (Land Development). Phase 1 was implemented on October 1, 2018.
* Phase 2 is for activities associated with horizontal construction, such as plan review, permitting, inspections, building-related fire permits and includes code enforcement activities (Building Development & Code Enforcement). Phase 2 will be fully implemented by December 2020
Scope & Methodology
The audit scope was phase 1 of the Accela implementation from October 1, 2018 through August 20, 2019. We reviewed general IT controls including user access, backup and recovery, ch...
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