Lazaro Aleman
ECB Publishing, Inc.
Audits, important accounting procedures that typically take place annually and can be eye-glazingly dull to the average person, possibly may spark a bit more interest this time around.
County Coordinator Parrish Barwick informed the Jefferson County Commission at the meeting on Thursday evening, Nov. 18, that he had met with the auditor who reviews the county’s financial records and the latter was ready to present the audit report and have a conversation with the board.
“Some of it is good, and some of it is not so good,” Barwick said. “There are some things that you’re going to have to be attuned to, and that we’re going to have to change in the future.”
Some of the problems were already known to the commission and others were not, Barwick said. He cited as one of the known problems the two dump trucks that the Road Department lease purchased from a company that went bankrupt, landing the county inadvertently in a lawsuit.
In order to settle the lawsuit out of court, the county earlier this year had to pay $202,000, as well as it lost the trucks, even though it was an innocent participant in the deal.
“Instead of us having a $10,000 bill in a year and then trading it in the next year, the auditors are telling us that we spent $900,000, essentially without budget authority,” Barwick told the commission. “It’s not like something that we didn’t already know that we had to change.”
Commissioner Betsy Barfield, who also has previewed the audit, said some of what the report contained was “pretty alarming.”
“We need to have a robust conversation about what’s going on with our finances,” Barfield said. “I’ve sat down and talked with the auditor. And it’s pretty striking, some of the things that he said.”
She recommended that the board set a workshop on Dec. 16 solely to focus on the audit, adding that there were quite a number of things on the report that needed to be discussed. The board agreed to the recommendation.
Barfield segued into the forensic audit of the clerk of court’s office that she had requested on Oct. 21 and that she reminded that board Clerk of Court Kirk Reams had agreed to.
Barfield said that she had taken it upon herself to research the matter and was bringing her findings to the board.
“I’ve talked with our current auditor and he had some suggestions for narrowing the scope of the audit and not doing an overarching one,” Barfield said. “Because there are some things that the clerk of court office does very well, such as finances and human resources. So I say, let’s take away those items that the auditor feels are running exceptionally well, and have him help us narrow the scope to do a limited scope audit.”
She cited among the areas that she believed should definitely be reviewed P-card expenditures, travel receipts and advertising. P-cards or purchasing cards are a type of company charging card that allows goods and services to be procured without using a traditional purchasing process.
Other areas that Barfield said she thought warranted examining were the policies, especially those related to P-cards, capital outlays and family insurance for employees.
“This limited scope audit will be our opportunity to work through the process and the policies, as well as an opportunity to strengthen our accounting weaknesses,” she said.
Barfield said that she was certain that whatever auditor that the board selected for the forensic audit, the individual would be recommending additional policies and that some of existing ones be tightened.
She mentioned that she had reached out to the auditor general and the latter had emailed her a list of approved auditors who specialized in these types of specialized audits. The two auditors that the auditor general had suggested, she said, were James Moore and Company and Purvis Gray and Company.
“At our second meeting in December, I will ask this board if it has any special requests from the limited scope audit,” Barfield said. “At that time, we can move forward with the scope of the audit.”
Audits are official inspections of the accounts of individuals or organizations, typically conducted by an independent body. Forensic audits are described as more specialized and intense analyses of the accounting procedures.