State audit report on Washington County released

WASHINGTON — Auditor of State Rob Sand on Thursday released an audit report on Washington County, Iowa.

According to the report, Washington County’s revenues totaled over $30.382 million for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2022, a 6.9% increase over the prior year. Expenses for County operations in that period totaled almost $24.933 million, a less than 1% increase from the previous year. The significant increase in revenues is due to an increase in contributions from the Iowa Department of Transportation for road infrastructure, according to the report.

The document showed eight areas recommended for improvement, all of them repeated from the same annual report in 2022. Highlights included a lack of segregation of duties and a lack of independent review procedures to ensure accurate reporting. Most of those are par for the course in rural local government, thanks to limited employee counts.

“We have three full-time staff in the Recorders Office and all are cross-trained to perform duties, which is the most practical with a small office,” said a written response from the Washington County Recorder’s Office, which was included in the report. “We have segregated duties as much as possible and can look over other employees when performing the duties to have oversight.”

The report highlighted the county’s ambulance service as a specific area for improvement, saying the department needed to implement policies and procedures to “maintain account listings, reconcile billings, collections and delinquent account balances, and to reconcile ambulance collections to deposits.”

The report said the problem could result in unrecorded or misstated ambulance revenues, if left unchecked.

In her written response, Interim Ambulance Director Katrina Altenhofen said a change on that front was in the works.

“ (The) county is determined to improve internal controls over reporting and accounting,” she said. “We plan to implement a reconciliation procedure.”

A copy of the audit report is available for review on the Auditor of State’s website.

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com