By Donna Hales
An audit for Eastern Oklahoma Development District shows it spent $248,000 more than it took into its general fund for the 2008 fiscal year.
“It’s not good at all,” auditor Nancy Skidmore with Clothier & Company CPA’s P.C. told board members present at a special Monday meeting. “You can’t do that.”
The audit report for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2008, states:
• EODD had expenses of $7,101,652 — which were $166,264 more than its revenue.
In comparison, expenses exceeded revenues by $12,648 in the earlier fiscal year ending June 30, 2007.
• Net assets decreased 22 percent as a result of fiscal year 2008’s operations.
• Total cost of all programs increased by $316,072, with no new programs added in the year.
Certain deficiencies in internal control over financial reporting were identified that auditors “consider to be significant deficiencies,” the report states.
Auditors and Executive Board members discussed:
• The agency did not charge enough to grants and programs for indirect costs that were charged to the general fund.
• Sick leave hours were used by three employees before they were earned. The concern was not the dollar amount but following policy, the audit report said.
“Negative sick leave was allowed by the former executive director,” the report said. “In the new policy and procedures manual it is prohibited.”
Interim Executive Director Ernie Moore said that won’t show up on next year’s audit — that former Executive Director Joe Harrington had used some of his accumulated sick leave to pay for sick leave any employee took before it was accrued for the fiscal year ending today.
• EODD has a lag time before it is paid money for 911 work being done for some counties. EODD gets the money as certain stages of the work is completed, Moore and EODD Executive Committee Board Member Dexter Payne said.
EODD cannot collect administrative fees for the 911 projects, Moore said.
It will even out when the work is complete, they said.
• Cost-of-living and request raises made through the former executive director also affected the bottom line, officials said.
• Moore said there are still some collections from old grants yet to be received. Most grants are paid in portions, like the 911 reimbursements.
“Some projects drag out for several years,” he said.
A change in record keeping is on tap, and anything “we need to address, we will,” Moore said.
Payne told auditors the agency needed a more detailed financial report every month and an audit report that includes figures from the year before next to the figures for the fiscal year the audit covers.
The auditor noted that funds in the bank also were not bringing in as much interest as in better economic times.
Reach Donna Hales at 684-2923 or dhales @muskogeephoenix.com.
