06/19/2025
Performance Audit of Ohio Department of Aging Highlights Employee Turnover, Communications Issues
On June 12, 2025, the Ohio Auditor of State’s office (OAS) released a performance audit report on the Ohio Department of Aging (ODA) conducted over the period of several months. According to the report, only 1 in 3 people employed by the Ohio Department of Aging (ODA) in fiscal year 2019 remained on staff in fiscal year 2024, and the report went on to say that the significant employee turnover, which outpaced other state offices, strained ODA’s communications with local agencies and constituents, negatively affected operations, and hindered auditors’ work to identify issues and offer recommendations for improvement.
ODA Director McElroy was quick to respond to Auditor Keith Faber, noting "Importantly, the audit and other recently released financial audits found no ODA deficiencies in programmatic performance, internal controls related to financial and data reporting, fraud assessment activities, grants management, or oversight operations.”
The new performance audit released last week offered nine recommendations for improvements at ODA, including:
- The agency’s current State Plan on Aging is overly broad and included goals beyond the scope of agency’s influence, “resulting in a plan that did not provide action steps that were easily implemented or measured.” Moving forward, ODA should consider objectives specifically tied to programs it impacts and communicate and collaborate with constituents to track progress.
- Though required to submit an annual report with information about complaints and issues raised by residents and recommendations for improvement, the last report was submitted prior to 2020. The State Long Term Care Ombudsman “should prepare and publish the required annual report in a timely manner.”
- While ODA has made efforts to improve its data collection and utilization, the agency still does not collect, utilize, and/or publish information that could assist in decision making, including tracking the number of older Ohioans using different services and regional wait-list and levy data. Auditors wrote, “ODA should continue its data analytics efforts and explore collecting, utilizing, and publishing data elements beyond those specifically mentioned in this recommendation.”
McElroy addressed three specific points of the performance audit recommendations within planning and operations:
- The audit report attributed 65 percent of departmental departures to retirements, interagency promotions and transfers, or health.
- ODA's staffing shifts largely mirrored national trends driven by COVID-19, and the department's turnover rate had dropped to 8.9 percent in 2024 following targeted recruitment, leadership development and an agency-wide organizational health assessment completed in 2023.
- ODA's voluntary exit interview process had previously yielded low response rates. But following an engagement period,ODA implemented a more effective and engaging process of in-person discussions which increased participation to 71 percent in 2025.
The full report is available online, and Director McElroy’s response letter begins on page 65 of the audit report.