City Services Auditor II (1684) - Citywide Examination

Company Description:
The Controller is the chief financial officer and auditor for the City and County of San Francisco (City). The Office of the Controller’s mission is to ensure the City’s financial integrity and promote efficient, effective and accountable government. Its vision is to be a model for good government and to make the City a better place. Our team includes financial, technology, analytical and other professionals. We value the diverse backgrounds, perspectives and lived experiences of our teams and clients in everything we do. We work in a collaborative and inclusive environment, promote equal opportunity, and invest in the professional development and wellbeing of our team members. You can expect to work alongside colleagues who are committed to serving the public with integrity and want to see positive impacts from their work. We are looking for smart, motivated individuals who want to make a difference and use government to play a role in solving our City’s problems, including addressing long-standing and harmful disparities in our communities. For a career with purpose and professional growth, join us in the Controller’s Office.

City Services Auditor (CSA)
CSA was created in the Office of the Controller through an amendment to the Charter of the City that voters approved in 2003. CSA includes two divisions—the Audits Division and the City Performance Division. Charter Appendix F grants CSA broad authority to:

• Report on the level and effectiveness of San Francisco’s public services and benchmark the City to other public agencies and jurisdictions;
• Conduct financial and performance audits of city departments, contractors, and functions to assess efficiency and effectiveness of processes and services;
• Operate a whistleblower hotline and website and investigate reports of waste, fraud, and abuse of city resources; and
• Ensure financial integrity and improve the overall performance and efficiency of city government.

In November 2024, San Francisco voters approved a Charter amendment to create the role of an inspector general within the Office of the Controller. The Inspector General (IG) is granted expanded investigative powers and is integrated into CSA, including as part the Controller’s Whistleblower Program’s referral process with a broad mandate to address public corruption and enhance public integrity.

The Audits Division delivers impactful audit and investigative services that provide actionable recommendations to city leaders, which in turn promote and enhance accountability and improve the overall performance and efficiency of city government. The members of our multidisciplinary staff come from a variety of educational and professional backgrounds, in areas including government policy, economics, information science, cybersecurity, statistics, law, and finance. Our collective experience allows us to provide expert knowledge on a wide range of issues across the City. We perform our audits in accordance with the generally accepted government auditing standards (GAGAS) set by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. The Inspector General performs investigations in accordance with the Association of Inspectors General Principles and Standards for Offices of Inspector General.

The Audits Division has actively and successfully assisted the Controller in fulfilling its mission by providing best in class audit and investigative services that assist City leadership in making strategic decisions to improve government services.

In recent years, the Audits Division has:

• Passed (without deficiencies) triennial peer reviews, which are required by Generally Accepted Government Auditing Standards.
• Issued hundreds of audit recommendations, with an average citywide recommendation implementation rate of over 90 percent.
• Developed and successfully implemented mission-critical audit programs, including those related to citywide public integrity, construction and capital programs, IT and cybersecurity auditing, and various citywide key business processes.
• Successfully managed a nationally regarded Whistleblower Program that receives, investigates, and/or refers hundreds of reports per year, and resulted in decision makers taking corrective actions.
• Received national awards from the Association of Local Government Auditors recognizing the quality of the division’s audit reports and the impact the audits have had to improve city programs and services.

CSA, including the Inspector General, is funded through a commitment of two-tenths of one percent of the City’s annual budget. In fiscal year 2025-26, the San Francisco budget allocates approximately $27.5 million for CSA’s functions required by the City Charter, plus an additional $9.5 million from bond sales linked to multi-year capital programs.

Application Opening: March 23, 2026
Application Filing Deadline: April 6, 2026
Salary: $125,528 to $152,646 Annually
Schedule: Full-time

Under general supervision, incumbents in this position plan, organize, and conduct various types of audits for the City and County of San Francisco. Our award-winning City Services Auditors work with governmental agencies, vendors, contractors, and other parties that do business with the City. In a fast-paced and team-oriented environment, our auditors engage in performance, financial, forensic, compliance, investigative, and information technology audits, program evaluations, and other analytical activities to ensure efficient, effective, and accountable government and to support informed policy decisions. This position may lead portions of an audit or investigation and provide on-the-job training and evaluation feedback. Essential duties for this job include, but are not limited to:

PERFORMING AUDITS & INVESTIGATIONS

• Audits and investigates a variety of programs, functions, processes, and activities within city departments and contracts to evaluate efficiency, effectiveness, economy, and compliance elements. Identifies and evaluates internal controls.
• Conducts fieldwork testing, including collecting, analyzing, and documenting evidence as it relates to the scope and objectives.
• Performs data analysis and reliability testing on data sets in conformance with industry standards.
• Develops findings and recommendations that are fully supported by analysis.
• Conducts audit follow-up activities.
• Performs all assignments in accordance with the office policies and/or Government Auditing Standards, as appropriate.

PLANNING AUDITS & INVESTIGATIONS

• Scopes audits and investigations, including researching legal mandates and other background information, determining needs of key stakeholders, and identifying potential sources of evidence.
• Performs risk assessments to determine scope and objectives for different projects of all levels of complexity.
• Develops audit scope and objectives with limited or no prior audit information, and prepares detailed audit programs to conduct testing, detailed budgets, and milestones.  

COMMUNICATION, PRESENTATION, & WRITING

• Interviews management and staff to obtain key information as it relates to the audit objectives and investigations.
• Plans, organizes, and conducts audit entrance and exit conferences and periodic meetings with department management to inform them of progress and results.
• Prepares presentations and may present results to a variety of audiences including department management and public hearings.
• Prepares written reports that effectively and concisely communicate results.
• Critically reads reports and provides feedback on persuasiveness, clarity, consistency, style, and grammar.  

PROJECT MANAGEMENT, TEAMWORK & LEADERSHIP

• Maintains close contact with the audit manager and/or director regarding project progress and problems.
• Reviews team members' work for completeness, technical accuracy, organization, content, tone, grammatical accuracy, and compliance with audit standards.
• Provides on-the-job training and evaluation feedback to team members and Auditor I’s.
• Actively contributes to team effort and takes a lead role in planning, conducting, and completing large, complex audits, or portions thereof.  
• Performs other duties as needed, including: providing input into the annual audit work plan to identify audit risks and priorities; maintaining the appropriate level of confidentiality and sensitivity; recommending and/or developing operational changes for the City Services Auditor division; maintaining professional proficiency through continuing professional education and participation in professional associations; may receive, enter and investigate complaints for the whistleblower program; may construct records and data that may have been destroyed or falsified; may participate in the IT risk assessment and development of the IT audit plan program for the division and lead and execute IT audits, including testing internal IT controls, for a variety of departments and agencies; may develop scope work for an monitor audit and assessment contracts; and performs other related duties and responsibilities as assigned.

Education: Possession of a baccalaureate degree from an accredited college or university in business or public administration, accounting, finance, statistics, the social sciences, English, or a related field.

Experience: Two (2) years of verifiable professional auditing experience or related analytical experience; functional understanding of local government operations; knowledge of government auditing standards and auditing principles and practices.

Substitution: A master’s degree in business or public administration, accounting, finance, statistics, or a related field may be substituted for one (1) year of the required experience.

Verification:
Applicants may be required to submit verification of qualifying education and experience at any point during the recruitment and selection process. If education verification is required, information on how to verify education requirements, including verifying foreign education credits or degree equivalency, can be found at https://sfdhr.org/how-verify-education-requirements

• Note: Falsifying one’s education, training, or work experience or attempted deception on the application may result in disqualification for this and future job opportunities with the City and County of San Francisco.
• All work experience, education, training and other information substantiating how you meet the minimum qualifications must be included on your application by the filing deadline. Information submitted after the filing deadline will not be considered in determining whether you meet the minimum qualifications.

Selection Procedures:

After application submission, candidates deemed qualified must complete all subsequent steps to advance in this selection process, which includes the following:

Supplemental Questionnaire Examination (Weight 100%)

The Supplemental Questionnaire is an exam and contents will be evaluated and scored. The Supplemental Questionnaire Exam is to evaluate the experience, knowledge, skills and abilities that candidates possess in job-related areas which have been identified as critical for this position.

Eligible List/Score Report: A confidential eligible list of applicant names that have passed the civil service examination process will be created, and used for certification purposes only. An examination score report will be established, so applicants can view the ranks, final scores and number of eligible candidates. Applicant information, including names of applicants on the eligible list, shall not be made public unless required by law. However, an eligible list shall be made available for public inspection, upon request, once the eligible list is exhausted or expired and referrals resolved. The eligible list/score report resulting from this civil service examination process is subject to change after adoption (e.g., as a result of appeals), as directed by the Human Resources Director or the Civil Service Commission.

Upon passing the exam, candidates will be placed on the eligible list for a period of 6 months.

Certification: The certification rule for the eligible list resulting from this examination will be Rule of three (3) Scores.

To find Departments which use this classification, please see: https://sfdhr.org/sites/default/files/documents/Forms-Documents/Position-Counts-by-Job-Codes-and-Department-FY-2022-23.pdf.

HOW TO APPLY

Applications for City and County of San Francisco jobs are only accepted through an online process. Visit https://careers.smartrecruiters.com/CityAndCountyOfSanFrancisco1/ and begin the application process.

• Select the “I’m Interested” button and follow instructions on the screen

Applicants may be contacted by email about this recruitment and, therefore, it is their responsibility to ensure that their registered email address is accurate and kept up-to-date. Also, applicants must ensure that email from CCSF is not blocked on their computer by a spam filter. To prevent blocking, applicants should set up their email to accept CCSF mail from the following addresses (@sfgov.org, @sfdpw.org, @sfport.com, @flysfo.com, @sfwater.org, @sfdph.org, @asianart.org, @sfmta.com, @sfpl.org, @dcyf.org, @first5sf.org, @famsf.org, @ccsf.edu, @smartalerts.info, and @smartrecruiters.com).

Applicants will receive a confirmation email that their online application has been received in response to every announcement for which they file. Applicants should retain this confirmation email for their records. Failure to receive this email means that the online application was not submitted or received.

Recruitment Analyst Information: If you have any questions regarding this recruitment or application process, please contact Kira Sanchez, the recruitment analyst at [email protected]

Additional Information:

• Information About The Hiring Process
• Conviction History
• Employee Benefits Overview  
• Equal Employment Opportunity 
• Disaster Service Worker
• ADA Accommodation
• Veterans Preference
• Right to Work
• Copies of Application Documents
• Diversity Statement

Additional Information:

• Information About The Hiring Process
• Conviction History
• Employee Benefits Overview  
• Equal Employment Opportunity 
• Disaster Service Worker
• ADA Accommodation
• Veterans Preference
• Right to Work
• Copies of Application Documents
• Diversity Statement

The City and County of San Francisco encourages women, minorities and persons with disabilities to apply. Applicants will be considered regardless of their sex, race, age, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition (associated with cancer, a history of cancer, or genetic characteristics), HIV/AIDS status, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, military and veteran status, or other protected category under the law.