County expects to pay up to $80,000 for audit review
Tue, 02/26/2019 - 11:08am
admin
By:
Karen Edelbach
The Clearwater County Board of Commissioners met on February 19, 2019.
Ms. Colleen Hoffman came to the meeting from the private auditing company, Hoffman, Philipp & Knutson, which has been doing Clearwater County's audits for the last 13 years, and for eight other counties in northern Minnesota.
She worked in the State Auditor's office for 20 years prior to the formation of the firm doing audits for the counties. After that point it was determined by the State to allow private firms to do audits for counties, thus the Hoffman firm was formed, and six more CPA firms began audits for 12 other counties. They were able to do the audits at a substantially lower cost.
The state legislature changed the law so that any county could hire a private firm. However, State Auditor’s Office under Rebecca Otto were not doing as many audits as before and sued the counties for using private firms. The State Auditor decided to do reviews for 2015 for Clearwater County and others, finding very little in the way of errors to be corrected by the firms. When the State lost appeals all the way to the Supreme Court, the law to allow private firms to do the county audits stood.
“The law stands. We fought very hard so you can have the private firms do your audits. We ended up paying $36,000 in fines, and now all of the reviews are done. It cost over a million dollars for this,” Ms. Hoffman stated.
“It was a big waste of the county's time,” added County Auditor Allen Paulson. “Clearwater County will receive a bill between $60-80,000.”
“You set high ethical standards. You expect the best of your employees – it trickles down to the department heads by setting the 'Tone at the Top', (wording used). Not every county gets the same caliber of my confidence!” she added.
“It is our job to have good policies for the counties. There are many checks and balances in place. Those controls are functioning. It will take a couple months to know the cost.”
“We like you being here. You know what you want (when doing the audit), and it would take a long time if we had a new auditor,” Paulson said.
“We appreciate your work, and our staff,” Chairman Nelson said.
The Commissioners unanimously approved the signing of the 2018 Single Audit engagement letter by the Board Chairman, John Nelson, allowing the Hoffman, Phillips and Knutson firm to do the 2018 Audit for the County.
MIS Technical Director, Stuart Lien received approval for the appointment of Chris Fultz to the position of Information Technology Specialist, effective March 5th. He is from Bemidji and has the qualifications and education for the position. He is excited to work in the field. Salary will be about $22 per hour.
Director of Nursing Marissa Hetlund will hire Christian Lanners as a full time RN, working more than 1040 hours per year. Christian has three years of experience as an RN, and prior to that worked for seven years as a flight medic.
Commissioner Mark Larson reported that there is a meeting room available at the old clinic which may be used by the community for events and meetings, with bathrooms available.
County Auditor Allen Paulson was authorized to pay the submitted invoices of $6,224 for the County Revenue Fund and $1,747 for the Nursing Service Fund.
All Commissioners were present at the meeting: John Nelson, Neal Illies, Dean Newland, Mark Titera, and Mark Larson.