How to handle the Seperation of Duties from the remedies offered in the 2014 State Audit & the 2016 State Audit.

fdorwanjuly46Submitted by Dennis Orwan(891)
Contributor
October 31, 2015 - 9:29am

How is the next City Council & Mayor going to handle and create a policy for the Seperation of Duties remedy stated in the 2014 State Audit that the current Council & Mayor agreed to and was accepted by the State?

This is a big question for the next Council & Mayor! This type of oversight issues determines the credibility of the City as a whole!!!!!

The remedy  in the 2014 & 2016 Audit was clear and to the point. The City has to create oversight on anyone handling public funds.

The person recieving the funds collected can not be the person dispersing the public funds. The person balancing the accounts can't recieve funds or disperse the funds.  The person or group assigned to balance the accounts is responsable for initialing the accounts to show the audit has been completed and a written report should be done as a matter of record.

You could do this with two part time office workers and some of the council members or mayor would accept some oversight duties. This is a big problem that should be resolved before the review audit is completed.

This is one of the reasons I ran for the City Council!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

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Comments

Dennis Orwan44 weeks 4 days ago

Seperation of Duties and Oversight

After having a meeting with the new City Council that will be taking office in January (2016), it sounds like having 2 part time people in the City office who handle public funding will be enough to cover the seperation of duties and create the oversight needed if the Mayor takes control of the city appointees and city employee. This is the major area in all of the state audits that I have read up to this date that needs to be corrected to satisfy the state, the insurance company, and other agencies that control how a city entity should operate.

A written hiring policy put into place by a resolution of the City council and adopted into are ordinances, should be put in place for this Council and any future Council to adhere to. One of the reasons for the petition for a State Audit and change of Council and mayor, was lack of oversight in appointing a City Clerk and City Worker without a background check, referense check, and not having a declaration sheet signed by City Clerk or City Worker.

The City Clerk at the time didn't have a bond as required by State statute. It was obtained after the fact. I believe the current City Council shouldn't have accepted that bond. If the City is going to accept and pay for the  bond, it should be with the Insurance company that provides the insurance for the City. The City didn't even have the insurance coverage for employee theft or dishonesty in place for anything the current city clerk handled. The insurance company wouldn't under-write that part of the policy. The lack of this coverage left the City and City Council people individualy liable for anything the current City Clerk or City Worker did wrong. That part of the insurance coverage needs to be put back in place. If the only way that coverage is put back into place is by removing the current City Clerk, that is just going to have to be the way it is. The bonding issue should also be put in and be part of the Hiring Policy language. The City should have the choice of paying or having the appointees for handling public funding pay for their own bond.