Village Of Valleyview

2001-2002 AUDIT REPORT RELEASED

Mar 02, 2003

The regular audit of Valleyview conducted by the State Auditor was released in mid-November 2002. The audit was for the period of January 1, 2000 through December 31, 2001. Five findings were reported by the State Auditor?’s Office in the report. Below are short excerpts from the report, the complete text of the report can be found on the State Auditor?’s website at

http://auditsearch.auditor.state.oh.us/RPIE/

and typing in Valleyview in the line for Entity Name or Report Title. You will also find the previous two audit reports from 1999 and 1997 there as well. You may also get copies of the reports through the Village Fiscal Officer by making a request through the Village Hall. In conjunction with the report there is a Management Letter that the Village receives. The Management letter is not available on the State Auditor?’s website, but you can request a copy through the Village Hall. There will be a small fee for copying the report(s) and management letter(s) through the Village Hall but the reports are free over the Internet through the State Auditor?’s site with a free Adobe Acrobat Reader computer program.

2001-2002 AUDIT REPORT
Finding Number 2001-30625-001
?– Findings For Recovery

The Village did not remit $37,506 of federal income taxes withheld from wages earned by employees for tax periods ending December 31, 1998, September 30, 1999, December 31, 1999, March 31, 2000, June 30, 2000, September 30, 2000 and December 31, 2000. Pursuant to Ohio Revised Code Section 117.28 a finding for recovery for public money is hereby issued against the Village?’s General fund, Laura Hunt, former Clerk/Treasurer, Debbie Cain, former Clerk/Treasurer, and Peerless Surety Company in favor of the Internal Revenue Service.

Finding Number 2001-30625-002
?– Noncompliance Citation

The Village did not disburse to the Public Employee Retirement System (PERS) all the required employer contributions during 2000 and 2001. As of December 31, 2001, the Village owed PERS $22,729. This amount was subsequently paid to PERS in April 2002. As of October 4, 2002 the Village is up to date on all the required employer payments to PERS.

Finding Number 2001-30625-003
?– Reportable Condition ?– Monitoring Controls

Appropriate financial reports were not provided to the Village Council to provide effective monitoring over financial operations. Lack of effective monitoring has led to operational failures and errors occurring without timely detection by Village Council.

Village Council should monitor the financial operations of the Village regularly. Such monitoring should include review of budget versus actual data, detailed receipt reports, detailed expenditure reports and cash journals. In addition council should monitor all Mayor?’s Court activity.

To assist management in detecting potential material financial and/or compliance transactions that may effect financial operations, we recommend the Village Council become more involved in the review and monitoring of the Village financial operations.

Finding Number 2001-30625-004
?– Reportable Condition
?– Posting to the Accounting System

In 2001 and 2000, the Village ledgers did not always reflect proper and timely posting of receipts, expenditures, appropriation measures and estimated resources approved by the Village Council. The council approved appropriation measures and estimated resources were not properly posted to the accounting system. Several mis-postings appear to be caused by lack of Clerk/Treasurer training on the Uniform Accounting Network (UAN) accounting system and lack of legislative monitoring of financial activity.

We recommend the Clerk/Treasurer attend formal UAN training to gain familiarity with the accounting system and that Village Council monitor financial activity to ensure appropriateness of financial data.

Finding Number 2001-30625-005
?– Reportable Condition
?– Timely Deposit of Cash Receipts

During 2000, monthly Mayor?’s Court remittances to the General Fund were not being deposited in a timely manner. As a result, not only is there risk of loss from misplacement, or misappropriation, but also the cash is not available for expenditure or investment. We recommend that deposits be made on a daily basis both to improve cash flow and reduce the risk of loss.

The Audit Report also noted that a prior finding, 1999-03625-001 - Monitoring Controls by Village Council need to be implemented, had no been corrected and had been repeated during this audit report. All of the findings from the audit report were directed towards the former Clerk/Treasurers and the Village Council. Some individuals try and place the blame on former Mayor Mike Russolillo for the problems facing this Village. The audit report does not show that the former mayor was to blame for the financial problems of the Village. It appears that a lack of training for the Clerk/Treasurers to be able to better perform their duties and the Village Council?’s failure to provide oversight of the operations of the Clerk/Treasurers and the finances of the Village have lead to the problems of the Village. The current Village Administration is tasked with correcting the problems facing the Village and preventing them from happening again. The new members of council are not to blame for the past problems with the IRS and PERS bills, but Sue Huber and Raylene Graves were members of the council when the IRS and PERS went unpaid. The manner in which the current council handles the financial problems is very important to the future of the Village.

Their poor management of the Village finances could have serious consequences for the Village.
We encourage everyone to read the audit report and management letter in its entirety so that they will have the information in front of them and be able to make their own decision. The Voice has provided some of the information, but to due to space limitations and cost we could not reproduce the report in its entirety.