Audit highlights county’s lack of internal controls
By Jack Dura
Farmer Staff Writer
A draft report of Eide Bailly’s audit of McKenzie County for 2013-14 highlights five material weaknesses and one significant deficiency in financial statements.
The independent auditor’s report, dated September 2015, includes financial statement findings reporting that McKenzie County lacked a segregation of duties, trained staff and good internal controls, but does not include opinions from Eide Bailly on the county’s responses or effectiveness of internal controls.
In response to the draft report’s findings, the county “has segregated the duties of all accounting functions in the most efficient manner possible” due to limited staff and work overloads stemming from the oil boom.
The county also chose to hire Eide Bailly to assist in preparing certain transactions and financial statements.
While aware of a lack of effective controls over cash, the county opted to “continue to monitor the processes and determine if additional controls can be implemented to mitigate the risks related to the limited staff.”
Two findings drew a “management reponse” from McKenzie County, content which Eide Bailly did not describe in its draft report.
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