Washington State Auditor’s Office

Sound Transit: Performance Audit Planning Assessment

Background:
PlanB, in partnership with Talbot, Korvola & Warwick, were engaged by the Washington State Auditor’s office to perform an agencywide Performance Audit Planning Assessment of Sound Transit to identify key risk areas within their operations. The purpose of this assessment was to review primary business drivers, in order to identify the potential impact of unacceptably high risk factors.

Objective:
The purpose of this performance audit was focused on identifying the programs, activities, overlapping components, and internal and external items that potentially could become audit topics within the next three-to-five years. Given the limited resources that many of these government programs have, it is important to identify the areas where performance audits would have the highest success rates at improving efficiency.

Conclusions: 
Sound Transit responded to audit recommendations by implementing improvements in construction planning and management processes. Procedures have been introduced to effect control and are continually refined and updated. Value management and risk assessment tools have been applied to contribute towards the management of budget and schedule. This audit also found diligent review by Sound Transit Project Controls of proposed change orders.