Audit of Community Teamwork, Inc. (CTI)

This is a Massachusetts State Auditor performance audit of Community Teamwork, Inc., a Lowell-based nonprofit, covering July 1, 2017 through June 30, 2019.

“I am pleased to provide this performance audit of Community Teamwork, Inc.”

The audit looked at whether CTI properly documented and reported certain expenses, including non-payroll contract costs and top executive compensation.

“In this performance audit, we examined CTI’s compliance with Sections 1.04(1) and 1.05 of Title 808 of the Code of Massachusetts Regulations regarding the documentation and reporting of certain administrative and programmatic expenses.”

CTI handles large amounts of public and other funding for housing, childcare, energy assistance, food, financial education, and related services, so its spending controls matter to taxpayers and service users.

“CTI currently serves more than 50,000 people, employs more than 500 people, and partners with dozens of organizations.”

If you live in one of the communities CTI serves, this report says the auditor did not find significant compliance problems in the sampled spending and compensation areas reviewed.

“CTI offers various services and programs, which provide childcare and youth education; mentoring and career development; consumer, financial, and business education; and rental, housing, fuel, clothing, and nutrition assistance.”

The audit’s bottom line is clean: the auditor found CTI complied with the tested requirements.

“Below are our audit objectives, indicating the questions we intended our audit to answer and the conclusions we reached regarding each objective.”

The report does not list major corrective actions; CTI management was told about the audit contents and had a chance to comment.

“My audit staff discussed the contents of this report with management of the agency, whose comments are reflected in this report.”

The finding is significant because CTI receives and administers tens of millions of dollars, including money tied to state and federal programs, and the audit did not report major compliance failures in the areas tested.

“During fiscal years 2018 and 2019, CTI received revenue from the following sources, according to its Uniform Financial Statements and Independent Auditor’s Reports1 for each year.”

A “performance audit” means the auditor checked whether CTI followed specific rules and had enough evidence to support the audit conclusions.

“We conducted this performance audit in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.”