Island County was cited by the State Auditor’s Office for “significant deficiencies” in its financial reporting.
Washington state counties are required to submit financial statements annually. Those statements are then reviewed by the state Auditor’s Office for financial accuracy and accountability.
This year’s financial audit “identified deficiencies in the design or operation of internal control over financial reporting that we consider to be significant deficiencies,” according to the finding documents released by the state Auditor.
The reports are compiled by the Island County Auditor Sheilah Crider’s office, which saw a high degree of turnover in the past year. The state Auditor concluded that Crider’s staff turnover contributed to the county reports’ lack of accuracy.
“The county experienced turnover in the positions primarily responsible for the creation of the financial statements and has not dedicated the necessary time, resources and oversight to ensure accurate financial reporting,” the state auditor concluded.
Crider said her office lost five employees to other Island County departments or when employees moved out of state over the past year. She said she had a fairly static team of good accountants for several years but they all moved onto advanced, better-paying positions.
However, the turnover was not the only contributing factor to the state audit finding, Crider said.
A couple of the county’s departments missed the May deadline to submit data to her office and the county ended up filing 44 days late, Crider said.
“We were late getting our financial statements to the state Auditor’s Office because we had to reopen the books on five separate occasions,” she explained.
“It was extremely disappointing.”
Island County Budget Director Elaine Marlow, who sat in on the state auditor’s exit meeting, said the main concern for auditors was that a couple of the line items were misclassified, mistakes that were corrected before the audit was completed.
Marlow stressed that no money was misplaced.
Though she has completed these reports for several years for the county in the past, Marlow said that small mistakes can occur even though the aim is to get everything perfect.
State auditors also noted other errors in the financial statements “when taken together impair the understandability of the financial report.”
“The errors required us to perform additional audit procedures to ensure correct reporting,” the state audit report said.
The state auditor went on to say that the errors found may indicate an environment in which additional misstatements could occur and may not be prevented or detected by the county.
The state Auditor recommends that Island County provide additional training for its financial accountants and establish a more effective review process.
State auditors said they will review the county’s progress on this front during the next annual audit. The financial audit report’s accompanying accountability audit report found no problems.
