DEL NORTE— Rio Grande County Commissioners spent a majority of the morning to discuss their recent audit completed by Wall, Smith and Bateman during their meeting on Sept. 13. Representatives from the company were present to explain the audit in detail and answer any questions that may arise after the audit outline was read to commissioners.
Shareholder and CPA with the company, Kimberley Temple and CPA Manager Jessica Bogner opened their presentation by notifying the board that the audit was an unmodified opinion by Wall, Smith and Bateman and was fairly submitted by the company.
Commissioners worked their way through the report and ultimately learned that the county was in good standing for the year. There had been no budgetary violations resulting in a negative deficit and their department managers were sticking very closely to their individual budgets. “You don’t want to be overly cautious with expenditures, but you want to keep a close eye on what is being spent,” said Temple. She continued to explain that the county is functioning with very little debt, adding that 2.9 million dollars flowed through the county with the majority coming through the social services department.
Temple and Bogner took a moment to explain that the audit was user-friendly and open to the public for viewing online at the county website. Next, the auditors asked for County Administrator Roni Wisdom to join the conversation while they discussed the only material weakness that was noted in the audit. Within in smaller counties, cities or towns that have a smaller amount of staff to handle financial documents within the governing agency, most of the time, auditors will find that there is a problem with internal financial control. Rio Grande County suffered a high level of employee turnover at the management level in the midst of switching from one computer system to another.
Between the computer conversion and employee turnover the audit found material weakness in the system the county uses to verify financial expenditures and payroll. Auditors then sat down with Wisdom to figure out a plan of action to correct the weakness and put in place a corrective action plan that entails working with department heads to monitor the internal budgets and create a more secure budgetary control. “We need to get more eyes on financial documents, have more than one person looking at financial documents and take a team approach to ensure the finances are correct before approval,” said Wisdom.
Commissioners agreed that the changes were necessary to ensure that minimal mistakes occurred throughout their fiscal years and agreed that two more years of audits would help with the situation. Commissioner Chairwoman Karla Shriver stated that the main issue was the computer system conversion and as the new system is corrected, the issue would resolve itself with the help of the correction action plan. “Everything is put in place to protect the county,” finished Temple. Commissioners voted to approve the audit, pending the final document with the corrective action plan included. The vote was passed unanimously and the commissioners thanked Temple and Bogner for their work.