Craighead County Audit Released

An audit done by state legislative auditors for Craighead County showed a “material weakness” in the way assets are safeguarded in the county, according to the audit.

While the audit showed that each county office was in substantial compliance with Arkansas fiscal and financial laws, the 36-page audit completed July 10 but released Wednesday by the Arkansas Legislative Joint Auditing Committee showed only one major finding.

“However, as discussed below, we identified a certain deficiency in internal control that we consider to be a material weakness,” the audit from Deputy Legislative Auditor June Barron said. “To ensure the proper safeguarding of assets, financial accounting duties related to initiating, receipting, depositing, disbursing and recording transactions should be distributed among appropriate employees. The county officials, as specified in the ‘Other issues’ section of this report, did not segregate these duties to sufficiently reduce the risks of fraud or error and properly safeguard the County’s assets, because of limited financial resources. We recommend that the financial accounting duties in each office be segregated among employees to the extent possible.”

Tony Thomas, administrative assistant for County Judge Ed Hill, said the finding is typical for most counties when the cost of complying with the request is weighed versus having additional employees handling only one or two tasks.

“We have a host of officials and department heads who strive to run the best operation possible,” Thomas said. “It was a standard finding.”

Thomas said county officials work with each other to protect against fraud and provide a backup for certain projects.

BONO LAKE
The audit also showed that justices voted to transfer $471,000 from the general fund’s capital account to help continue construction of the Bono Lake project.

The project, which began as an idea to help flood control in the Bono area, has been criticized for its delays and costs.

However, Thomas said the transfer was due to the restrictive nature of funds from a one-cent sales tax passed to help pay for the project.

The audit also found at least 45 special accounts, ranging from the Bono Lake and County Jail accounts to the Project Lifesaver railroad fund, that have been set up in recent years.

“We have established several separate and identifiable accounts. They are easy to account for. The audit may be difficult but it helps to establish a clean budget,” Thomas said of the large number.

Speaking of the audit, Thomas said county officials met with auditors to go over their budgets as well as concerns.

“We always view Legislative Audit as an asset to Craighead County. It is an effort to make the public aware of auditing procedures,” Thomas said, noting auditors use conference rooms at the Jonesboro courthouse to go over information. “They work with each official in a thorough way. They are also able to respond and they sit with each official and go over everything.”

The next step in the process involves the release of the so-called supplemental findings done by auditors.

“It is most interesting to us. It will help us to correct certain issues,” Thomas said.