Delayed county audit entering final stage of completion         

[March 16, 2007]  The word on the delayed Logan County audit is that the auditors, Crowe Chizek, hope to complete their fieldwork this week, ending Friday. The fieldwork consists of actually going to the various county departments and reviewing their books.

The initial attempt at the audit failed last year when figures in the new county software would not line up properly with the auditing.

An accountant specialist with the software provider, Great Plains, was called in to review the figures with the county treasurer, Mary Ellen Bruns, and help set up the accounts so that the figures would work. Fund balances, due-to and due-from accounts constituted the majority of the difficulties.

The accounting for the county has a number of complexities. There are county departments that have all their accounting done in the main accounting system. Then there are departments such as emergency management, the health department and the airport that receive county funds through levy and are part of the county audit but have separate bookkeeping systems.

Proper attribution and dispensation of grant funds to different departments has created challenges in the new system also. Some of the departments that are on their own accounting system receive grant funds that run through the county system; others do not.

Sally Gosda from the Logan County Health Department told finance committee members that the auditors contacted her to look more extensively at the health department books than is typical. They particularly wanted to look at the grants the health department has received, and they requested 2004 and 2005 spreadsheets.

The health department has their own single audit performed, and that was completed some time ago, she said.

Finance chairman Chuck Ruben said that the auditors also asked to see the airport grant material. The county does not ever handle the airport accounting, except sending their 5 percent matching grant checks, Ruben said.

Ruben further explained to Gosda that the additional work must be part of the expanded audit that Crowe Chizek is now required to do because of the earlier problem. John Weber told the county that by regulation they would have to do more extensive examination and look at more details.

In February, Weber informed the county that because of the increase in the amount of work to be done on the audit, it would also cost more. In the third year of a three-year contract set at $38,000, it might now cost up to $57,000, depending on how items were listed in the changes and other factors that couldn't be seen until actually looking at the books. Weber said that where they might have looked at entries representing $5,000 or more, they now might look more closely at entries down to $500.

The fiscal year actually began Dec. 1, 2006. The board accepted a proposed budget then with the understanding that there may need to be revisions made to when the delayed audit came in.

At present it is intended to adjourn Tuesday's voting meeting to a date yet to be determined, so that when the audit is returned, the board can vote to accept a new budget with the audit in hand.

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Past related articles

• End of county audit difficulties comes into sight 
• County passes new budget as fiscal year comes to a close