As part of the agenda for the 6 p.m. Feb. 5 regular meeting of the Salida City Council, the city’s audit committee will review the results of the 2017 financial audit. After encountering what Salida City Administrator Drew Nelson termed “significant difficulty in getting the 2017 audit complete,” audit firm McMahon and Associates has presented its findings.
The audit was delayed multiple times while the city waited on record preparations by former city finance director Jodi Mclurkin. The audit firm reported incomplete accounting records and inadequate audit preparations. Audit standards prohibit auditors from taking on the financial management tasks, such as performing account reconciliations, because they would then be auditing their own work. The city was forced to hire an outside accountant to prepare its books for the formal audit to be completed.
A review of the preliminary draft of the audit firm’s findings included in the Feb. 5 council meeting packet reveals McMahon and Associates experienced no difficulties in completing the audit once they had the records, and noted significant deficiencies in only a few areas. Those include internal controls related to vacation accruals (with some staff accruing more than the maximum allowed time), conflicting payroll duties being performed by one person in the finance department and a single-access financial deposit process and entering receipts for the SteamPlant (which the audit firm recommends should be a two-person process). It also recommended using pre-numbered tickets so reconciliation can be done between tickets sold and funds received.
Council will also review the terms of a 2018 engagement letter from McMahon and Associates to conduct the 2018 financial audit.
Also on the agenda is the appointment of a new city treasurer and public hearings for ordinances related to development. Those projects include the annexation and rezoning of 7.5 acres at 786 Scott St., the rezoning of 19.1 acres at 6507 CR 102 from Residential Mixed Use to Manufactured Housing Residential (R-4).
Salida City Council will consider appointments to the Historic Preservation Commission and to the Planning Commission. They will end their evening by considering a resolution approving an intergovernmental Memorandum of Understanding regarding a cost-sharing agreement with the Chaffee County Housing Office.
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