The following fee audit report is for Clinton County Sheriff Jim Guffey, which includes comment and recommendation for the period of January 5 through December 31, 2015.

Internal Control–Material Weakness: The Sheriff’s Office Lacks Adequate Segregation of Duties.

The sheriff’s office lacks inadequate segregation of duties. The sheriff’s bookkeeper collects payments from customers, prepares deposits, writes checks, posts transaction to the receipt ledger, posts checks to the disbursements ledger, and prepares monthly and quarterly reports. The sheriff or another employee did not document oversight of any of these activities.

Lack of oversight could result in undetected misappropriation of assets and inaccurate financial reporting to external agencies such as the Department for Local Government.

This condition is a result of a limited budget, which restricts the number of employees the sheriff can hire or delegate duties to.

The segregation of duties over various accounting functions such as opening mail, preparing deposits, recording receipts and disbursements, and preparing monthly reports, or the implementation of compensation controls is essential for providing protection from asset misappropriation and inaccurate financial reporting. Additionally, proper segregation of duties protects employees in the normal course of performing their daily responsibilities.

The sheriff should separate the duties involved in receiving cash, preparing deposits, writing checks, posting to ledgers, preparing monthly bank reconciliations, and comparing financial reports to ledgers. If this is not feasible, due to a limited budget, cross checking procedures could be implemented and documented by the individual performing the procedure.

Sheriff’s Response: Due to a limited budget, the Sheriff’s Office has the maximum amount of employees in the office allowable. Each office personnel, as well as myself, reviews all documents on a daily basis.

KRS 91A.040 requires county officials to publish portions of the audit reports and the accompanying statement within 30 days of the release of the audit report.

*The auditor’s opinion letter. The letter is published by APA when audit is released, so the sheriff will not have to re-publish, he just needs to ensure it was published.

*A statement that a copy of the complete audit report, including financial statements and supplemental information, is on file at the Sheriff’s Office and is available for public inspection during normal business hours.

*A statement that any citizen may obtain from the sheriff a copy of the complete audit report, including financial statements and supplemental information, for his personal use.

*A statement which notifies citizens requesting a personal copy of the audit report that they will be charged for duplication costs at a rate that shall not exceed twenty-five cents ($0.25) per page.

*A statement that copies of the financial statement prepared in accordance with KRS 424.220 is available to the public at no cost at the business address of the officer responsible for preparation of the statement.