ghost employees - june 2026

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Ghost Employees - June 2026
​Released June 2026

Download full report here

We undertook this quick response audit to evaluate whether the city has established effective controls to prevent and detect the presence of ghost employees—a type of payroll fraud. We found that the city’s procedures for preventing ghost employees are generally adequate, but system controls should be strengthened. We made six recommendations: four to Human Resources and two to Finance. Our recommendations focus on strengthening segregation of duties, removing unnecessary system privileges, better aligning user access with job responsibilities, and developing procedures to monitor indicators of ghost employees and other payroll fraud.

We found:

• The city’s procedures for preventing ghost employees are generally adequate, but system control weaknesses could allow ghost employee fraud to occur.
• The city’s onboarding process consists of a multi-level system of workflows in Oracle among the hiring department, Human Resources staff, and job candidates.
• User roles assigned to some Human Resources staff in Oracle include access that allows payroll information to be modified.