His report opened with an adverse opinion on the Financial Statements because there are county agencies that are not a part of the State audit and their figures, therefore, cannot be attested to. This led to the discussion of five findings of noncompliance and significant deficiencies noted in the report as follows:
1. Segregation of duties in different offices in the Doddridge Courthouse with the same employees performing money-related duties that normally are handled by different/other employees. Given the limits on hiring additional employees, this item probably will not be resolved.
2. Expenditures being made without the proper back-up invoices and/or authoritative signatures indicating approval for payment. An example was the DCAA using the county credit card without providing sufficient back-up invoices prior to payment.
3. Because the County Commission does not have a policy in place to accurately monitor compliance with that part of the WV Code that requires “…a local fiscal body shall not expend money or incur obligations (1) In an unauthorized manner; (2) For an unauthorized purpose; (3) In excel of the amount allocated to the fund in the levy order; (4) In excess of the funds available for current expenses…” the Commission spent in total a little over $35,000 in excess of the amounts allocated in the official levy estimate (budget).
4. The Doddridge County Commission did not have an adequate control procedure to assure that budget revisions were made to place the actual unexpended funds at June 30, 2010 into the next year’s budget.
5. Additionally the same type of failure resulted in an improper balance in the year end amount to be appropriated to the next fiscal year for the Coal Severance Tax Fund.
The Commission is required to file a report on how these deficiencies will be corrected.
The Auditor complimented the County staff in general.
