HomeMy WebLinkAboutPension & Audit Committee August 17, 2021
PENSION & AUDIT COMMISSION CHAMBER
COMMITTEE August 17, 2021
PRESENT: Hons. Hardie Davis, Jr., Mayor; B. Williams, Mayor Pro Tem; Odie Donald,
Administrator; Donna Williams, Finance Director, members.
ABSENT: Hon. Sias, member.
Mr. Mayor: We are here for the quarterly Pension & Audit Committee meeting. We’ll call
this meeting to order and the Chair will recognize Madam Clerk.
The Clerk: Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor.
1. Presentation of the Second Quarter ending June 30, 2021 Investment Reports for the
1945 and 1949 Pension Plans along with the April 2021 update. (Heather Seigler,
Morgan Stanley)
Ms. Seigler gave a presentation regarding the investment reports for the 1945 and 1949
Pension plans and the April 2021 update.
2. Presentation from Serotta, Maddocks Evans CPA firm regarding petty cash and
change fund review. (Josh Maddocks and John Snider)
Mr. Snider: We were engaged by the Board of Commissioners several years ago to
perform internal audit work for the City. It is the responsibility of the City’s management to design
and implement internal controls necessary to prevent and detect fraud and error and other
misstatements. It is the responsibility of the Board of Commissioners and this audit committee to
provide oversight as management performs its responsibilities and it is the responsibility of our
firm to design and perform tests of those internal controls and make recommendations where
necessary for improvement. Mauldin & Jenkins released the City’s external audit back in July and
we were asked by the Director of Finance to take a look at a management recommendation that
came out of the previous year’s audit in order to address the auditor’s concerns. That relates to
petty cash. The auditor had stated that there was the existence of a large petty cash accounts across
various departments and so we designed some procedures to address any risks that were being
identified by the auditor. I would like to turn it over now to Mr. Maddocks who did the work and
he will answer any questions you may have.
Mr. Maddocks: The objectives of our audit was to get a listing of all the petty cash and the
change fund amounts along with the custodians, the people who are over the cash throughout the
county and then for every single piece of cash throughout the county we went out and observed
the custodian count the cash and made sure that it added back to what it was supposed to be and
while it was there we also asked questions of the custodian to determine what their processes were,
what their internal controls were and how things worked. Here you see a listing of what we got
from the Finance Department. This shows the total change funds and petty cash that the county
has. It’s $21,000 in change funds and $9,200 in petty cash. The change funds are mostly held at
places like Water and Tax Commissioner where people frequently have to come and pay bills and
1
then there are clerks who have to make change out of the cash. The petty cash is held throughout
the county and that’s used to pay for small expenses. Examples that we saw were like bottles of
water for places that need water but don’t have access to it or cans of spray paint for marking
things. So a total of $30,000, $21,000 in change funds and $9200 in petty cash. While we were
out there we did the things I described before. We had the custodian count it and we watched
every single dollar get counted. And the good news is there’s really not that much to report.
Everything lined up just about all the way you wanted it to. We actually found a little bit extra
money in our results. There was some cash at 1803 Marvin Griffin Road in a change fund that
was not listed on the general ledger but is actually at the location and that will need to be added to
the general ledger and there’s some cash that needs to be reclassified a little bit. So this is a full
listing of all the cash accounts that we performed and you can see we went to a lot of different
places, counted a lot of different drawers and then in the report we wrote down the answers to all
of our questions. Our recommendations are three things. One and two are very similar. Number
one, we recommend that management determine a standard time such as once a month, once a
quarter, once a year for all of the petty cash to be counted and reported so that the amounts can be
reconciled to the general ledger. Number two is very similar to number one. We recommend that
management determine and communicate to all departments another standard time, again once a
month, once a year, once a quarter for all the change funds including the drawers not in use and
cash in vaults to be counted and reported so that the amounts can be reconciled to the general
ledger. And our third has to do with the excess cash that we found. We recommend that
management add the additional $700 that we found to the general ledger as a change fund and
change the total amount from in License & Inspection to $800 instead of $300. So overall those
are the only recommendations that we have and I’d be glad to answer any questions, talk about
anything else anybody would like to.
Mr. Hasan: In reconciling all of this how far back does this go?
Mr. Maddocks: That’s a good question. I’m not sure when the last time all of the accounts
were reconciled to the GO was. We basically looked at all of it and reconciled it to the GO and
the only thing we found was the additional $700 but I’m not sure when the last time all the
individual accounts were reconciled. We did this over the course of May 11 and May 13 and
reconciled all of it and that was all we found.
Ms. Williams: To this level it has been several years since we had an external source
review and actually do the physical cash count. Each year those amounts are reported and adjusted.
We do individual contacts through the Finance Department to the representative to the custodians
in the department for them to verify and to count those amounts but this has been the first physical
observance of that count in several years.
Mr. Hasan: Thank you.
Mr. Mayor: Are there any other questions? Okay. With these recommendations that are
brought forward I’m going to pose these two both to Director Williams and Administrator Donald.
We can act on these and say that we adopt them and send them forward to the full Commission
and then have further discussion next week.
2
Mr. Donald: I agree. I think we just want to make sure that remember the Commission
gave a directive that after receiving the audit report from Mauldin & Jenkins that we both send a
letter and proceed in this fashion and so this would also be a report back to the Commission that
we have completed those tasks and moving forward in our new mode of operations.
Mr. Mayor: All right, I’ll entertain a motion to that effect at this time.
Mr. Donald: Make that motion.
Mr. B. Williams: Second.
Mr. Mayor: Second. I’ve got a motion and a second to receive the recommendations and
to communicate forward to the Commission on our next meeting. Any other discussion? All right,
voting.
Mr. Sias out.
Motion carries 4-0.
Mr. Mayor: In light of that we’ll go back to Item 1 and I’ll entertain a motion to receive
as information.
Mr. Mayor: Okay, Donna, you’ve got a question?
Ms. Williams: Yes, sir. This item is a little bit a victim of a cut and paste on there. If
you’ll notice it says that it’s an April update. The update was actually July.
Mr. Mayor: Okay.
Ms. Williams: The record just needs to reflect that we received an update as of July.
Mr. Mayor: Okay. All right.
The Clerk: Are you receiving this as information without objection, sir, or are you getting
a motion?
Mr. Mayor: Without objection indicating the appropriate amendment of July, 2021 update.
The Clerk: Okay. I believe that’s it.
Mr. Mayor: All right, is there any other business before us? Okay, there being none, this
meeting is adjourned. Thank you, everybody.
ADJOURNMENT: There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned.
Lena J. Bonner
Clerk of Commission
3