Every government in Washington has a duty to safeguard the resources entrusted to it; our new guide shows you how

Segregation of duties, or separating conflicting duty assignments in your government, can help protect your local government's assets. But which duties do you segregate, and what are your options if you cannot feasibly do this? What if you are a very small entity with limited resources?

Our Office recognizes how challenging this can be, so the Center for Government Innovation created a new resource to help you get started, no matter your size. In addition to identifying best practices, this resource helps you to:

• Learn which duties should be segregated, within each financial process such as for payroll or inventory
• Understand the financial risks to assets when duties are not segregated
• Identify additional oversight and monitoring steps you might implement when it is not feasible to segregate duties

For very small entities with a one- to three-person accounting department, you might be especially interested in our appendix that includes strategies for small entities.

If we have you excited and ready to get started, then wait – there is even more! We have created a self-assessment tool to help you perform and document your own evaluation, which can also be found in the appendix of the resource. If you are not sure where to get started, this might be a great place to assess where your controls are at!

We hope you find these new resources helpful, and we'd love to hear from you. Email us with your questions, comments, or recommendations for new resources at Center@sao.wa.gov.