00:00:00:00 - 00:00:49:00 Chairman Vaughn It is 2 p.m., and I call to order the September 24th, 2025 meeting of the Texas Transit Transportation Commission Audit Subcommittee. Note for the record, that public notice of this meeting, containing all items on the agenda, was filed with the Secretary of State at 12:12 p.m. on September 16th, 2025, which is at least seven days prior to the meeting, in accordance with Government Code 551.044. At this time, I would like to ask that before we begin today's meeting, you place all cell phones and other communication devices in the silent mode. All speakers should say their name and title before speaking. Thank you and with that I will now turn the meeting over to Chief Audit and Compliance Officer, Parsons Townsend. 00:00:49:01 - 00:01:08:04 Chief Townsend Thank you, Chairman Vaughn. At this time, I ask for everyone's full attention to the screen, as we show the Greer Building safety video describing emergency exits and other emergency procedures. 00:01:08:06 - 00:02:22:00 Video Narrator Attention Please. The following is a safety briefing to help ensure your personal safety while at the Texas Department of Transportation Greer Building. In case of a medical emergency, please call 911. The automated external defibrillator unit is located here on level 1 in the main lobby at the security booth. First aid kits are marked and located on each floor. Fire extinguishers are market and located on each floor. In the event of an evacuation proceed to the nearest exit. Once outside proceed to the west parking lot of the Greer building located at the corner of congress avenue and 11th street. In case of tornado or inclement weather, stay inside, move away from exterior walls and windows. The designated shelters are stairwells, basement, interior hallways, and centrally located restrooms. In case of active shooter or bomb threat, follow instructions from the public address system and onsite security personnel for more details. Thank you for your time, have a safe and productive meeting. 00:02:22:01 - 00:02:29:00 Chief Townsend With a safety briefing being completed, I turn the meeting back to you, Chairman Vaughn. 00:02:29:01 - 00:02:36:00 Chairman Vaughn And now, I will welcome opening comments from my fellow Commissioner. Commissioner Alvis, do you have any opening comments this morning. 00:02:36:01 - 00:02:38:00 Commissioner Alvis Other than I'm glad to be here and serve. I appreciate your leadership. 00:02:38:01 - 00:03:11:00 Chairman Vaughn We're certainly happy to have you and welcome you to the Audit Subcommittee. I need all the help I can get. Okay. We will now consider the approval of the minutes for the May 20, 2025 quarterly Audit Subcommittee meeting. Draft minutes have been provided. Do I have a motion to approve the minutes as presented? 00:03:11:01 -00:03:11:05 Commissioner Alvis I move to approve. 00:03:11:06 - 00:03:14:00 Chairman Vaughn Second it. All in favor, say I. 00:03:14:01 - 00:03:14:10 Chairman Vaughn and Commissioner Alvis I. I. 00:03:14:11 - 00:03:19:00 Chairman Vaughn Motion carries. I'll now back over the meeting to Chief Townsend. 00:03:19:01 - 00:03:29:10 Chief Townsend At this time we will move to agenda item three, the Financial Management Division update. Amanda Landry and Megan Lowary with Financial Management Division. 00:03:29:11 - 00:03:44:05 Amanda Landry Good afternoon, commissioners. Amanda Landry, Director of financial management division. We're happy to be here this afternoon. We're presenting our annual update on our Spirit of Sox project that we complete annually. And I think I've got Megan here to give you some of the details of our results for this year. 00:03:44:06 - 00:06:43:12 Megan Lowary Good afternoon. My name is Megan Lowary, and I'm the Director of Accounting within the financial management division. I'm here to present the results of the recently completed internal controls testing over financial reporting. This engagement was designated as a Spirit of Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) initiative by the Commission in 2014. The objectives of the SOX testing are to strengthen internal controls over financial reporting, to provide to assurance regarding the adequacy of internal control over financial reporting, and to meet the Spirit of SOX requirements as directed by the Commission. During 2025, the compliance division assisted the financial management division with TXDOT's Spirit of Sox initiative by testing the operating effectiveness of 11 key controls over financial reporting. Key controls were tested using data from the first three quarters of fiscal year 2025. A 12th control was initially selected for testing, but it was subsequently removed after determining it was no longer performed due to a system upgrade. Controls selected for testing are rotated each year unless a control deficiency was detected in a prior year. The compliance division confirmed that the controls that were selected for testing covered during 2025 covered each of the most material accounts in TxDOT's annual Comprehensive Financial Report. At the conclusion of testing, the results were that ten of the 11 key controls, or 91%, were appropriately designed and operating effectively. During testing, compliance discovered that one of the reconciliations status performed by the financial management division was designed ineffectively. We already have a project and process to redesign this reconciliation, and it will be tested again next fiscal year to confirm that design was improved. This control does not affect the accuracy or reliability of TxDOT's financial statements. All of the general IT controls that were selected passed testing. This slide just shows a summary of each of the internal controls that were tested and the results. The financial management division looks forward to working with the compliance division again for the 2026 Spirit of SOX engagement. Financial management will perform our risk assessment and select the controls that will be tested. And then the compliance division will again perform the operating effectiveness testing of the identified controls. Um, they will be tested using data from the first three quarters of the fiscal year 2026. The two divisions will continue to partner over the next year to identify additional opportunities to enhance our internal key control over financial reporting. That concludes my presentation. And then I'm happy to answer any questions. 00:06:43:13 - 00:06:48:05 Chairman Vaughn and Commissioner Alvis No questions, no questions. Thank you. 00:06:48:06 - 00:08:20:00 Chief Townsend Thank you, Megan, Thank you, Amanda. All right moving on to agenda item four Audit and Compliance Charter approval. I, the chief audit and compliance officer will present this item. As outlined in the Audit Subcommittee Charter. The chief audit and compliance officer is required to periodically review and assess the adequacy of the audit and compliance charter and request approval for proposed changes to ensure the purpose, authority and responsibility as outlined in the charter continue to be adequate to enable the internal audit division and compliance division to accomplish their objectives. This minute order seeks approval for revisions to the Audit and Compliance Charter due to recent updates to the Global Internal Audit Standards issued by the Institute of Internal Auditors. The Texas Internal Auditing Act mandates the TxDOT audit and compliance functions adhere to the standards set by the Institute of Internal Audit and Government Auditing Standards, as applicable, as covered within the charter. Charter example revisions presented for approval include an updated purpose statement for the internal audit function, emphasizing its role providing the Commission and the Department with independent, risk based and objective assurance, advice, insight and foresight. A section on our commitment to adhering to professional standards and ethics for both the internal audit and compliance functions an annual confirmation to the Commission that the internal audit function remains organizational, independent, and various other updates to the existing language to align with the new global internal audit standards. I submit the Audit and Compliance Charter minute order for approval by the Subcommittee and am available to answer any questions. 00:06:48:06 - 00:08:26:00 Chairman Vaughn Commissioner Alvis, comments? questions? 00:08:26:01 - 00:08:28:00 Commissioner Alvis I move to approve. 00:08:28:01 - 00:08:36:00 Chairman Vaughn Alrighty. I will second that. All in favor, say I. 00:08:36:01 - 00:08:36:05 Chairman Vaughn and Commissioner Alvis I. I. 00:08:36:06 - 00:08:41:00 Chairman Vaughn Motion carries. I'll now turn the meeting back over to Chief Townsend. 00:08:41:01 - 00:12:55:00 Chief Townsend Right. Moving on to agenda item five Audit and Compliance Strategy. I, the chief audit and compliance officer will present items a and b. The Global Internal Audit Standards and the Audit Subcommittee Charter require the chief audit and compliance officer to review with all Subcommittee the Audit and Compliance Strategy. Presented to you today is the Internal Audit and Compliance Strategic Plan for fiscal years 2026 through 2028, which outlines a comprehensive approach to meeting our vision of being a trusted partner, delivering impactful, risk focused assurance that strengthens trust and supports the department's achievement of goals. The plan outlines the internal audit and compliance division mission statements, which emphasizes providing independent, risk-based and objective assurance, advice, insight and foresight while fostering a culture of ethical conduct, accountability and organizational integrity to prevent, detect and respond to serious breaches of fraud, waste and abuse. In addition to the vision and mission statements, the Strategic Plan outlines the core values that will be followed by both divisions, which include credibility, objectivity, independence, collaboration, integrity, transparency, accountability, and continuous improvement. Next slide please. Our prior strategic plan was developed in 2020 with the help of an outside consultant, which outlined four strategic goals, as seen on the slide on the left part. Internal audit has since established a dedicated data analytic team that has greatly enhanced our ability to to complete the projects assigned to us by the Commission also increases our ability for a more effective and efficient risk assessment to identify areas of the operations that focus our resources. Compliance has created dedicated fraud detection scripts for data analyst purposes to help mitigate and detect fraud, waste, and abuse within our operations. In addition, internal audit has an established dedicated I.T. authority with the skills and experience to assess the department's I.T. operations and compliance has implemented its targeted outreach program, performing 70 to 100 outreach efforts with one of its popular Coffee With the Crew, meeting with district line staff without supervisors present. In addition to that, they have dedicated training sessions with district engineers, and their direct reports in both TxDOT and industry conference presentations. These activities will be continued by both internal audit and compliance divisions, but now we shift our focus to the three new goals as presented on this slide. Our first goal is advanced professional competence and capabilities through certifications and reward systems. We're focusing on increasing the number of certified internal auditors within the department due to our ever changing environment of operations, regulations and security. With our work, we must ensure that our staff have the appropriate skills and expertise to address those challenges. Our second goal is to advance our data analytic programs within both the internal audit and compliance division, and to more sophisticated tools and method of analysis. It aims to enhance foresight on risk by establishing key risk indicators and risk assessment to support the audit plan and ensure appropriate use of state resources through our fraud detection efforts and our third goal is to improve our stakeholder communication and storytelling, to build trust and visibility with the Texas Transportation Commission and support the executive director in the department management through risk dashboards and developing a high level stakeholder communication plan. On the right side of this slide, you'll see what these are, the metrics we plan to to follow to measure our success of the strategic plan over the next three years, which include frequency of checkpoints uh compliance checkpoints with the business turnover of key positions, participation in our certification development program, completion of audits, percentage of audits establishing key indicators, how many audits were able to generate off those key risk indicators and frequency of high exposure risk identified during any of the engagements. Now this item doesn't require a vote. It's just a discussion item. So I'm available to answer any questions or feedback on the strategic plan. 00:12:55:01 - 00:13:34:00 Chairman Vaughn Commissioner Alvis? Okay. I have a question for you, very general, but on Friday, slide 14, prior strategic goals can you give us, you said that we're going to keep those in place and continue to monitor and, you know, continuous improvement, focus on that. Can you give us a feel for how far through this process on those four bullet points, where are or is that just a, you know, ongoing long term kinda situation? 00:13:34:01 - 00:14:19:13 Chief Townsend Yeah. So for example, if it is going to be our data analytics. Back in 2020 when we implemented this, you're talking about a lot of manual processes and trying to train up the staff. So think of large excel spreadsheets where you're putting in manual emphasis on trying to identify issues and trends. Now we're talking about moving into the realm where we're leveraging better technology and tools like A.I. Ahn is a great partner, in that realm, helping us with enterprise data platform, and also that the tools to meet that next goal to mature in the program to be more efficient. So an example of that is we're developing a pilot with the fuel card analysis, where we used to take two, like six weeks to do work. And we're talking about able to do something now in less than an hour. And so there's a lot of promise in that area. 00:14:19:14 - 00:14:27:11 Chairman Vaughn Yeah. It's good I like examples. That's good. Okay. Okay. Let's move on to move forward okay. 00:14:27:13 - 00:14:57:09 Chief Townsend I will continue to item five b, consider approval of the Internal Audit and Compliance Performance Measures and External Quality Assessment Plan. This minute order seeks approval of the Internal Audit and Compliance Division's Performance Measures and the chief audit and compliance officer's External Quality Assessment Plan, as required by Global Internal Auditing Standards and the Audit Subcommittee Charter. The purpose of the performance measures are to monitor the internal audit and compliance functions operations effectively and define key performance objectives. Key outcomes from these measurements include excel sustained excellence and professional competency through continuing education requirements and certification targets. High operational efficiency with audit plans and investigations completed within established timelines and quality benchmarks. Dedicated stakeholder engagement, including consistent client feedback collection and interagency collaboration, adherence to safety protocols and internal quality assessments. Reinforced reinforcing a culture of accountability and continuous improvement. If these measures are approved, they will be reported on an annual basis to the Audit Subcommittee and to the executive director. So I'm available to answer any questions on Performance Measures before moving on to the External Quality Assessment. 00:15:48:00 - 00:16:41:12 Chairman Vaughn Commissioner Alvis? Nothing. Okay, Uh. Chief Townsend you and I had a conversation, this past week about, you know, all the, external certification and, and training that goes on and your, your team. And I was asking you this, this, this is more of a comment, but I just want you to reinforce the answer that, you know, I mean, it appears that this could be as much as 50% of someone's time just looking at all of the different things that you all do. So I, I ask the question, is this this 1% of your time working time? Is it 50%? Is it several in between? What you know what. And you estimated at slightly less than 10%. And and you know, you agree with that after further reflection. 00:16:41:13 - 00:16:51:07 Chief Townsend Yes, yes, I still with the continuing education requirements and the time we use for certifications and and upskilling our staff, I would say for a given year, less than ten percent. 00:16:51:08 - 00:16:57:00 Chairman Vaughn I feel like that percentage of someone's work time is as appropriate. 00:16:57:01 -00:17:13:11 Chief Townsend Yes. Yes. So at the beginning of each year, all of our staff fill out training plans with their identified goals and what education they're going to take for the year, which again, is about 40 hours each year. And so we're able to schedule and lay that out so we can assure efficient use of those of the staff's time. 00:17:13:12 - 00:17:18:12 Chairman Vaughn Great. Okay. Thank you. 00:17:18:13 - 00:18:35:00 Chief Townsend Yes sir. Alright. Moving on to the External Quality Assessment. The purpose of that External Quality Assessment Plan is to fulfill the requirement for an independent systematic review of internal and external audit functions, conformance with Global Internal Audit Standards and Government Auditing Standards. The frequency will be approximately every three years. A comprehensive review of the adequacy of the internal and external audit functions performed by an independent assessor. And so the plan outlines the requirement for an independent assessor and the qualifications of that assessor. So examples are they have experience and knowledge of the standards. At least one member of the team has to be, uh, committed with an internal audit division director or chief audit compliance officer, so that we know that the feedback we're getting, we can rely upon and leverage. Also the reporting of the results will be provided from that assessor to the executive director and to the Audit Subcommittee. If there are any deficiencies or opportunities for improvement identified, I will draft an action plan and request for approval of that action. And from there, I will then periodically report on the status of it. And so with that, there's any questions about the external quality assessment? 00:18:33:01 - 00:18:35:10 Chairman Vaughn No questions. 00:18:35:11 - 00:18:43:00 Chief Townsend All right. Yes sir. So then I submit the Internal Audit and Compliance Performance Measures and External Quality Assessment Plan minute order for approval by the Subcommittee. 00:18:43:01 - 00:19:02:00 Chairman Vaughn We will now consider the approval of the Internal Audit and Compliance Performance Measures and External Quality Assessment Plan. Then do I have a motion to approve the Internal Audit and Compliance Performance Measures and External Quality Assessment Plan minute order as presented? 00:19:02:01 - 00:19:04:00 Commissioner Alvis I move to approve. 00:19:04:01 - 00:19:06:00 Chairman Vaughn Seconded. All in favor say I. 00:19:06:01 - 00:19:08:00 Chairman Vaughn and Commissioner Alvis I. I. 00:19:08:01 - 00:19:12:00 Chairman Vaughn Motion carries. I was now turn the meeting back over to Chief Townsend. 00:19:12:00 - 00:19:20:14 Chief Townsend All right. At this time we will move to agenda item six, the Compliance Division update. Cheryl Durkop, Division Director, will run through items a and b. 00:19:20:15 - 00:22:49:07 Director Durkop Good afternoon, chairman Vaughn, Commissioner Alvis. The compliance division is presented a summary of investigations for the fourth quarter For fiscal year 2025, as well as the 2026 Compliance Work Plan. Summary of investigations includes fraud, waste and abuse as well as EEO investigations. Overall, for the quarter, we received 217 allegations. We initiated 48 investigations in Q4 and substantiated 21 of those 40 investigations that we closed, resulting in a substantiation rate of 52%. During the fourth quarter, we substantiated several cases of falsified documentation, including duplicating duplication of laboratory equipment calibrations and falsified daily work reports and employee timesheets. Specifically, we substantiated an investigation where it was determined that a material process inspector submitted falsified laboratory equipment calibration results for 2023 through 2025. Also significant this quarter, we substantiated an investigation involving an employee who created a real conflict of interest by operating an unapproved business involving building and maintaining gravel driveways and parking lots for two entities that do business with TxDOT. In both of these cases, the employees resigned in lieu of termination. These are our outcomes by allegation category. Uh, these are the results of investigations that were closed during the fourth quarter, organized by allegation. Workplace harassment and workplace violence are the most common allegations that we received during the quarter. However, as you can see, the majority of the cases were unsubstantiated. During the fourth quarter, we did see a slight increase in allegations concerning the misuse of state resources. We did substantiate five cases of vehicle misuse and a case involving portable message signs. This slide is showing the substantiated allegations by category of the past 18 months. Each bar here reflects six months or two quarters of data. While workplace harassment, again, is consistently, the most commonly reported allegation, we have seen a decrease over the past six months, a substantial decrease in the number of reported cases. We've also seen fewer third party substantiated investigations. Um, overall, I'm not seeing any trends that are concerning, the numbers that you're seeing here and the categories are within what we expect to see. We have seen a decrease also with third party investigations in fiscal year 25 as compared to fiscal year 24. We took 13 entities to sanction in FY2024 at eight entities to sanction in FY25. Are there any questions about the summary investigations? 00:22:49:08 - 00:23:30:00 Chairman Vaughn First time, Commissioner Alvis, that I saw these slides a few years back I was somewhat, you know, red flags going off bells. But we have continued to focus, particularly at the district level and, and decrease in, expense here. And, you know, we consider that we've had over 13,500 employees, you know, it's, this we're doing pretty well, but we're not, you know, you know, keeping the focus on. And again, continuous improvement is the key here. 00:22:30:01: - 00:23:42:02 Commissioner Alvis Are we able to publish consequences? That way our employment base sees the consequences to these these actions. 00:23:42:03 - 00:23:45:04 Director Durkop It's part of what our Coffee With the Crew and our outreach communicates to employees is the consequences. In preparation for the, FY 2026 work plan, compliance completed a risk assessment focused on fraud, compliance and third party risks, which we did incorporate input from across TxDOT. Our top risks that we identified included third party risk management, subrecipient grant management, conflicts of interest and falsification of documentation. Our external audit section will be conducting risk based audits of external entities to include regional mobility authorities, public transit districts, and we will be working with rail on an audit of the Union Pacific Railroad. Our grant compliance group, our grant compliance group within external audit will be focused on outreach and assisting TxDOT districts and divisions, as well as grant recipients, to obtain and maintain compliance with state and federal regulations. Our compliance section engagements will include legislative reviews and advisory services, including a lab equipment inventory review and an inspector certification review. A major focus of the compliance section in FY26 will be the continued development of our continuous monitoring detection program, and this is where our data analytics team comes in. They are collaborating with multiple divisions to detect potential fraud, waste and abuse specifically related to fuel card activities, material and test duplicated testing, p-card activities, and project inspections. The compliance section is also working with operational divisions which include MTD, Construction, Maintenance to better understand their cultures and where they see their daily fraud risks. And then our investigative team, will continue with investigations and outreach activities, focusing on educational campaigns with TxDOT districts and divisions and third party outreach and training during TxDOT industry conferences. Are there any questions about the 2026 Compliance Work Plan? 00:26:19:11 - 00:26:26:12 Chairman Vaughn Good. Thank you. 00:26:26:13 - 00:26:29:00 Chief Townsend Thank you, Cheryl. So at this time we will move to agenda item seven, the Internal Audit Division Update. Craig Otto, Division director will run through items a and b. 00:26:29:01 - 00:26:57:00 Director Otto Thank you, Parsons, and good afternoon Chairman. Welcome, Commissioner Alvis, glad to have you here. The first thing I'm going to look at I talk about is 7.a. is the internal audit update on the district audits. Audit Section Director, Lindsay Bibeau, one of three that I have, walk you through some of the highlights in regards to district audits. This was something that started in 2025. And we'll continue through 26 and also into 27 to make sure that we get full coverage of, of all districts across the state. Go ahead. 00:26:57:01 -00:28:26:00 Section Director Bibeau The record, my name is Lindsay Bibeau. I'm one of the three internal audit division section directors. And this afternoon, I'd like to provide an update on our goals and approach regarding our district audits, we've been performing over the last year. These engagements were intended to evaluate processes that are common across all districts. Um, such as safety procedures, tagged asset inventory cycle counts, but they may not individually be substantial across, substantial across the agency. These engagements also helped us to identify any improvements to anything that may occur prior to an event occurring, and allows for us to have a more hands on approach in real time with the districts as we travel to each of the facilities. As Craig mentioned earlier, in FY25, we were able to visit and travel to each facility in eight of our districts. This year, we anticipate traveling to another 12 and rounding out our 25 districts, with the remaining five in FY27. Through these engagements, we're able to work directly with the DDS and their teams to help provide any act or help discuss and create any actions that would help not only their districts, but also the divisions, for their various to provide feedback on their various processes directly from the field. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions. 00:28:26:01 - 00:28:30:00 Chairman Vaughn Comments? Questions? Commissioner Alvis? Thank you very much. 00:28:30:00 - 00:34:27:00 Director Otto To continue on to item 7.b. find some highlights about the internal audit plan that will be presented tomorrow for full transportation, approval. The Internal Auditing Act. State of Texas Government Code, chapter 2102 requires that we do perform a risk assessment, technique. And we've had a framework for the better part of the 13 years that I've been at the agency that has worked to really, incorporate everything from divisional district impacts, using our federal partners. Within and working with administration as well as commission to identify areas that may be potential areas to be under consideration. For the FY26 internal audit plan, there were 24 risk-based audit engagements identified, that covered 37% of the risk. So through all of our interviews and conversations, if, you know, we had identified, let's just say a 137, of those risks were brought to the plan and we had 37 engage with that would cover the 37% is a pretty straightforward math equation, but we can get into the hundreds sometimes with some of these. And then one of the things that we want to make sure that we do is make sure that we're not duplicating, you know, it could be a different type of perspective. Someone may look at a little bit slightly different, so that those total number of risks we try to modify downward, and then we start making our selection based upon a 12 point criteria that really helps us identify, those areas that are more impactful to text that there were four carryover audits from the 25 plan. And one was actually, recently issued on emergency management. The other three continue to work with our business partners to make sure that the management action plans, um, do address the risk and also have a completion date set respectful to make sure that the business does not have any interruptions or unforeseen circumstances. So, we're foreseeing hopefully to have all three of those issued, within the month of October. And so I'll provide Parsons with that information. And you can relate that back to you, to let you know that progress. The chief audit and compliance officer also has to determine if we have adequate resources and budget, which we do. We've, we have 38 FTEs. The roughly 33 of them are audit staff that are actually out in the field performing these audits. And, we also want to make sure that we confirm to the board our organizational independence, which, you know, we do in multiple facets are there any questions in relation to the, plan overview aspect questions. Continue on next slide. This is a depiction illustration of our risk overview. And these are the bolded areas in black are the themes that you'll see on the next page. What's important about this is we also consider Marc's, our executive, executive directors, you know says as well, things that he would like to have covered throughout the agency. And so we have project delivery, of course, you've heard that. And we also have financial management, asset recovery, program optimization. Of course, we we we need to continue to have an eye on the information security. And in cybersecurity aspects of things, including the A.I. And then there's also governance, a third party monitoring, a couple of items, below it. Just provide some perspective. For instance, in project delivery, I'm looking at local government project agreements, something that we hear, from from all districts. And so, you know, with as many active projects as you've got going on, we want to make sure that it's a two way street, that we're working with our business partners and a local government, but they're also responsible for their, their accountability, on these projects as well, things, for instance, in regards to governance of third party monitoring, again, driving better efficiency and effectiveness, I think is is important in this because kind of back to what Lindsay was talking about in terms of helping us drive district operations effectiveness and efficiency. You know, we we want to make sure that they understand. It's not like a gotcha kinda thing. It's something that we want to make sure that we address. We provide the facts to them. So they could better position their people where they need to to make sure that we get we get, all of our projects done. We want to continue to the next slide. This is a depiction, again of the, 24 audits. As you see on the right side, the four carryover audits that, I had alluded to earlier. And then we also have five contingency engagements. So if you can picture, you know, our about 29 audits is pretty much what we have here. The top 24 is they scored, that we are going to be on the left as well as a couple on the right side. But then we also identified areas that if something were to happen, if there was a delay, timing could be interrupted. For whatever reason, we want to make sure we have something ready to go in regards to, that quarter, to make sure that our plan continues to move forward and that we accomplish what we've committed to to you all and the Audit Subcommittee, areas like grant management, public transportation for us, very active and also work with Cheryl's team in compliance to make sure that we're sounding making sure that we're, accounting for, properly supported and allowable types of events to make sure that the grants are effective, especially with federal money as well. We want to make sure that we're complying with federal programs, know emergency operations, making sure are we ready? Do we have the right facilities in place, you know, bandwidth things that that potentially may we may have learned from prior experiences, making sure that we're ready to go, since we have events pretty much throughout the year here in Texas. And also we've talked a little bit about governance training and also works on safety. We have contract, traffic control. And that's important that we make sure that there's a presence for us in those areas. They are much smaller on the mountain side than they are on the construction side. Either way, safety is important for the traveling public as well as employees. Next time. Are there any questions? As regards to the 26 internal audit plan? 00:34:27:01 - 00:34:31:00 Chairman Vaughn Questions, comments? No. Okay. 00:34:31:01 - 00:34:37:00 Chief Townsend Thank you, Craig. Chairman Vaughn, with all the agenda items completed, I turn the meeting back to you. 00:34:37:01 - 00:34:56:11 Chairman Vaughn Is there anything on y'alls radar screen, that you may have any concerns whatsoever about, if not that specifically... 00:34:56:12 - 00:35:05:03 Chief Townsend You know, I think that with this audit plan, and with the compliance work plan, we're addressing those risks and we're using those resources in an appropriate manner. 00:35:05:04 - 00:35:06:03 Chairman Vaughn Okay. 00:35:06:05 - 00:35:28:00 Director Otto I think it's also important that we go back a year and understand what didn't make the cut. Now understand if there's been change in those as well, because it's it's sort of a continuous operating and risk assessment. Sometimes you'll see some of those move forward that weren't in the prior year. And that, I think, answers your question. Chairman, in regards to some things have gotten worse. And so we're always keeping an eye on it. 00:35:28:01 - 00:35:34:02 Chief Townsend I'm and we do have the flexibility to to address it as it comes up throughout the year. 00:35:34:03 - 00:36:03:00 Chairman Vaughn Yeah. Bring it in the right way. All right. Anything else? We will not meet in executive session today. All the items on today's agenda are completed. We will have the next Texas Transportation Commission Audit Subcommittee on December 15th, 2025. Being no other comments, may I have a motion to adjourn? 00:36:03:01 - 00:36:04:00 Commissioner Alvis I move to adjourn. 00:36:04:01 - 00:36:18:00 Chairman Vaughn Second. Motion carries. And please note for the record, the time is 2:36 p.m. and the meeting stands adjourned.