accounts | 2 days 15 hours ago | Comments 0
By Susan Avedissian
CREST HAVEN — The county will be taking over the ledger work for the Cape May County Bridge Commission after an opinion from the auditing firm of Ford, Scott & Associates that commission’s accounting staff lacked the expertise to properly record activity in the general ledger.
The conclusion was one of three audit findings for the commission for audit years ending Sept. 30, 2007, and 2006.
The finding was not considered a “material weakness,” according to the report, which is defined as “a significant deficiency, or combination of significant deficiencies, that result in more than a remote likelihood that a material misstatement of the financial statements will not be prevented or detected by the entity’s internal control.”
Nor were they of such magnitude that they would “affect our ability to express an opinion on the financial statements taken as a whole,” according to the report.
The recommendation on the finding was that transactions be properly recorded in the general ledger and that activity be reconciled on a monthly basis.
“There are some troubling aspects to it (the audit) with the office management of it,” O’Connor told Commissioners Bill Henfey and Salvatore DeSimone April 10. Commissioner Phyllis Catanoso was absent.
He said he and Milton Nagel, commission purchasing agent and internal auditor, would be meeting with the auditors.
“They’re going to clean it up for now. Then I’m shifting the auditing work to the county, to the treasurer’s office.”
The treasurer, under an interlocal agreement with the county, will come in and do all the ledger work, and probably the voucher work, said O’Connor, with an attempt to shift full-time office staff to fill current vacancies in toll collector positions.
“On a number of items I’ve asked the treasurer to come in and whatever we can shift over there, we’re going to shift over there.
A couple of reasons: we have a lot of vacancies in tolls, I don’t want to hire any new people, we just can’t afford it. … Under the contract we are permitted to unilaterally move people from the office into tolls,” he said.
The second audit recommendations was concerning labeling of fixed assets — both physically on each piece of property, and also within the accounting system.
Read more...
By Susan Avedissian
CREST HAVEN — The county will be taking over the ledger work for the Cape May County Bridge Commission after an opinion from the auditing firm of Ford, Scott & Associates that commission’s accounting staff lacked the expertise to properly record activity in the general ledger.
The conclusion was one of three audit findings for the commission for audit years ending Sept. 30, 2007, and 2006.
The finding was not considered a “material weakness,” according to the report, which is defined as “a significant deficiency, or combination of significant deficiencies, that result in more than a remote likelihood that a material misstatement of the financial statements will not be prevented or detected by the entity’s internal control.”
Nor were they of such magnitude that they would “affect our ability to express an opinion on the financial statements taken as a whole,” according to the report.
The recommendation on the finding was that transactions be properly recorded in the general ledger and that activity be reconciled on a monthly basis.
“There are some troubling aspects to it (the audit) with the office management of it,” O’Connor told Commissioners Bill Henfey and Salvatore DeSimone April 10. Commissioner Phyllis Catanoso was absent.
He said he and Milton Nagel, commission purchasing agent and internal auditor, would be meeting with the auditors.
“They’re going to clean it up for now. Then I’m shifting the auditing work to the county, to the treasurer’s office.”
The treasurer, under an interlocal agreement with the county, will come in and do all the ledger work, and probably the voucher work, said O’Connor, with an attempt to shift full-time office staff to fill current vacancies in toll collector positions.
“On a number of items I’ve asked the treasurer to come in and whatever we can shift over there, we’re going to shift over there.
A couple of reasons: we have a lot of vacancies in tolls, I don’t want to hire any new people, we just can’t afford it. … Under the contract we are permitted to unilaterally move people from the office into tolls,” he said.
The second audit recommendations was concerning labeling of fixed assets — both physically on each piece of property, and also within the accounting system.
Read more...
