Finding 2022-001 - Internal Control over Financial Reporting and Account Adjustments as described in Section II (impacts two of the major federal programs COVID-19 Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ALN 21.023) and COVID-19 Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (ALN 21.027)), Auditor's...
Finding 2022-001 - Internal Control over Financial Reporting and Account Adjustments as described in Section II (impacts two of the major federal programs COVID-19 Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ALN 21.023) and COVID-19 Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (ALN 21.027)), Auditor's Recommendation: We recommend that management evaluate their internal controls over the financial reporting process and ensure that an individual is assigned to reconcile balance sheet accounts on a monthly, quarterly, and annual basis. We also recommend that a second individual be assigned to review the reconciliations and ensure that the financial statements are prepared in accordance with GAAP. Corrective Action Plan: The following procedures had been in place in prior years but were not followed completely in preparing trial balances for audit. During the period from January 1 following year-end until the trial balances are submitted for audit, both the Fiscal Office and the Controller's accounts payable processing will continue to evaluate invoices presented for payment. If either the invoice date, the date of delivery of goods or services, or a contractual down payment falls in the prior year, the item will be dated in the prior year. The trial balances of all restricted funds will be evaluated by the Fiscal Administrator to identify unexpended restricted revenues. These will be reclassified to "deferred revenue" accounts on the balance sheet of the respective fund. A representative of the Controller will approve and post those entries to the general ledger. The "payment under protest" of real estate taxes has been unusual in past years. However, we understand that it could be more common until the county-wide reassessment is completed for use in 2026. Accordingly, we will evaluate any such case and adjust the recorded "deferred total amount" to "estimated collection amount" in the current period. All of the above procedures have been re-adopted as of September 27, 2023 to constitute and implement our corrective action plan. We believe the above enhancement of our procedures will maintain our system of internal control to produce timely trial balances for audit and reporting.