Firm returns additional audit on Sheriff’s Office
By Jack Dura
Farmer Staff Writer
A supplemental audit has returned results related to money missing from the McKenzie County Sheriff’s Office.
Doug Cash of Eide Bailly presented McKenzie County commissioners with his firm’s supplemental audit during their board meeting last week, identifying a deposit shortage of between $5,463.90 and $9,619.90 related to North Dakota 24/7 program fees for between January 2014 and February 2015.
“Somewhere in between those two numbers is the actual loss amount which we don’t have because of missing documentation,” Cash said.
In its initial audit report provided to McKenzie County commissioners in November 2015, Eide Bailly identified a deposit shortage of sheriff’s fees and 24/7 fees of over $8,400 for calendar year 2014. That same audit also found a deposit shortage of between roughly $8,900 and $11,500 attributed to 24/7 fees, a subset of the overall shortage.
Sheriff and treasurer administrations have turned over since the time period in question, with processes now in place to guard against similar mishandlings, McKenzie County Auditor/Treasurer Linda Svihovec said.
Soon after he took office, McKenzie County Sheriff Gary Schwartzenberger alerted other county officials to over $29,000 in cash, checks and coins strewn throughout his department’s office, “unkempt and unregulated.”
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