Audit: State building agency did not oversee 17 of 18 projects reviewed and overpaid a janitorial contract by $677,669
The Sept. 15 audit of the Division of Facilities Construction and Management found building code problems on all six projects checked. The division concurred with every recommendation and set target dates from Oct. 31, 2026 through January 2028.
Continuing story: Auditing Utah state agencies
Utah’s Division of Facilities Construction and Management did not assert its authority over 17 of the 18 capital projects auditors reviewed, according to a legislative audit released Sept. 15. State entities ran those projects, totaling at least $17 million, without the division’s supervision or permission to supervise them themselves. [1]
Auditors checked six of the projects for building code compliance and found issues on all six. In one example, a state agency converted seven recreational vehicles on two projects into permanent structures that are rented to the public without inspections, and 34 more uninspected units are in use statewide. [1]
When most of the projects began, state law required the division’s supervision or delegation above $100,000. The threshold is now $1.5 million, though agencies still need the division’s authorization to supervise smaller projects. [1]
Delegated projects and accounting
The division oversaw 375 delegated capital improvement projects totaling about $308 million from 2020 through 2025. The audit says one of its 16 project managers is assigned to delegated-project oversight. [1]
About $5 billion was appropriated to the division’s capital fund over five years. The audit says prior leadership’s accounting made it hard to tell committed from uncommitted balances, and credits the department for putting the division’s accounting under departmental oversight. [1]
Janitorial overpayment
After a former employee was placed on leave for falsifying procurement documents, a program manager found inappropriate contract changes on janitorial services for the Taylorsville State Office Building. The division paid $677,669 more than it should have and did not recover $291,650 of that. [1]
The division terminated the employee but could not give law enforcement enough documentation to determine whether the employee personally benefited, the audit says. It notes the division had already changed how transactions are verified and signed off before the audit began. [1]
The division’s response
Director Andrew Marr’s response concurs with all recommendations. The division’s target dates include Oct. 31, 2026 for quarterly procurement audits, the first covering July through September; Nov. 1, 2026 to engage consultants for a design-standards review; and Dec. 1, 2026 for a post-project cost reporting form. Later targets run from April 2027, including a design-standards study by April 30 and revised requirements by May 30, through Jan. 1, 2028. [1]
The $291,650 not recovered is part of the $677,669 overpayment, not an additional amount. The audit does not establish whether the former employee personally benefited. Target dates are the division’s commitments, not completed work.
Sources
Reporting by The Utah Ledger from the public records above. AI-assisted, checked against those records.