Kane County Auditor Penny Wegman receives international award

Kane County Auditor Penny Wegman recently received the Innovator Award from the International Association of Government Officials at the annual conference in New Orleans.

The award recognized Wegman’s work for the Kane County Procurement Card Program.

Procurement cards – known as p-cards – are credit cards issued to department heads and office holders.

“It is an honor to be recognized by an international association for the work that we are doing here at the Kane County Auditor’s Office,” Wegman said in an email.

Wegman’s award entry said the county recognizes the use of p-cards as an essential tool to allow for buying goods and services.

“However, with any credit card, there are increased risks associated,” her award entry said. “Therefore, the Auditor’s Office closely scrutinizes the entirety of the P-Card Program.”

During annual audits in 2021 and 2022, her office suggested rebidding because the same company had been the p-card vendor since 2007, according to her award application.

The county’s evaluation team decided the best option was a new vendor, which began in 2024 after requests for bids were announced.

By awarding the new vendor, the county received an initial sign-in bonus and expects to generate larger rebates through a higher percentage rate and will gain access to a streamlined credit card payment portal, according to her application.

Through research, the auditor’s office learned a particular software was not being used for the p-cards feature.

The feature would allow employees responsible for manually entering credit card transactions in the system to import invoices through a file the p-card vendor provided, according to her award application.

By working with the Information Technologies Department, Wegman’s office implemented this new p-card software called Enterprise Resource Planning.

“This eliminates human error caused from the data entry and creates time savings for the numerous county departments/offices, allowing for more value driven work,” according to her application.

The role of auditor is to be a watchdog over government spending and to hold departments and offices accountable to taxpayers for their spending. Receipts are reviewed against the county’s financial policies and purchasing ordinance, according to her application.

Designating the business purpose for p-card activity demonstrated the best practice for providing transparency, according to her application.

Previously, the county’s employee responsible for the day-to-day p-card program had to access multiple website portals and used different log-on credentials.

The system administrator was responsible for issuing, maintaining and canceling credit cards. Any changes in one portal would not appear in the other portal until a business day later, according to Wegman’s application.

“The new vendor’s proprietary payment portal allows for all maintenance to be completed in one location,” according to Wegman’s award entry.

County offices and departments no longer receive mailed paper copies of their statements. Instead, p-card coordinators have log-in credentials to the vendor’s payment portal, which covers all necessary information, according to her award entry.

Wegman’s audit of p-card use in 2021 revealed that $58,211 was directed to DeVry University over four years for one employee and 15 of the 17 payments were made via a county p-card.

At the time, Board Chair Corinne Pierog and State’s Attorney Jamie Mosser issued a joint statement saying there was no violation of county policy or criminal law.

County Board members later changed financial procedures in response to Wegman’s audit findings.