When state auditors released the Clinton County Fiscal Court audit report for the fiscal year ending June 2020, Clinton County Judge/Executive Ricky Craig had reason to be both proud and thankful that the report was almost totally deficient free, barring two internal controls flagged by auditors in the report.

Judge Craig, during a brief interview last week, gave credit for the almost totally clean audit primarily to his office staff, as well as members of the Clinton County Fiscal Court.

The 2019-20 FY audit was the first audit conducted solely under the current administration and followed two consecutive years of auditors finding numerous, and sometimes serious, problems in listing the deficiencies found those two previous years.

Judge Craig noted that the prior fiscal year audits, ending in 2018 and 2019, had shown a total of 42 deficiencies, 23 in 2018 and 19 more in 2019.

This compares to the two deficiencies listed in the most recent 2020 audit, which Craig said the county and his staff are already working to correct.

The judge gave most of the credit to his office personnel, including Administrative Assistant Kelli Abston, County Treasurer Cindy Thrasher and Occupational Tax/Finance Officer Virginia Conner for their work in overseeing the management of county funds and how the money is spent and accounted for.

“We have three sets of eyes on all we do. We keep everything in check,” said Craig.

The judge said that one of the two internal control deficiencies listed in the audit pertaining to LGEA funding has already been corrected and the other is being worked on now.

(A corrective action plan letter submitted by the judge’s office is published at the end of this article.)

The judge said that considering the fiscal year included half of 2020, some months of which the COVID-19 pandemic was taking place and putting everything in a bind, he said he felt a burden had been lifted off the county’s shoulders after the report came out.

Judge Craig also thanked all of the magistrates. “They do their homework,” he said. “I am proud of them all.” He added that even though they sometimes have their differences, “at the end of the day, we move on” for what is best for the county.

Craig also said, “We watch everything we spend.” He concluded by saying he was especially proud of the fact that “no segregation of duties” was even listed as a deficiency in the audit report, which is rare for any county this size with a small staff to work with.

Judge Craig, on May 18, forwarded the following Corrective Action Plan.

“We have been made aware of the deficiencies reported in the Audit of Clinton County Fiscal Court for the Fiscal Year ending June 30, 2020 and have begun taking corrective measures to change the outcome for future audits. The deficiencies are as follows, with a corrective plan for each:

* 2020-001 The Clinton County Fiscal Court did not have sufficient internal controls over credit card disbursements.

* 2020-002 The Clinton County Fiscal Court was in noncompliance and did not have adequate internal controls over the Local Government Economic Assistance (LGEA) Fund

The deficiency 2020-001 involved interest charges and tax charges that were paid to credit cards. Those charges were incurred due to purchases made to vendors where the Clinton County Fiscal Court did not have accounts set up with tax exempt status. Those purchases were made during the COVID-19 pandemic to purchase supplies that were not available locally that accounts were set up and tax charges were unavoidable. Interest charges accrued were expected on all credit card purchases and were also unavoidable. Going forward, we hope to decrease the use of credit card purchases and will send in tax exempt forms when possible. Deficiency 2020-002 regarding controls over (LGEA) Funds was the use of funds to pay the bond premium for the coroner. This has always been paid from that same fund every year and had never been brought to the Clinton County Fiscal Court’s attention. It was assumed that the bond for the coroner would be allowable since the coroner’s and deputy coroner’s salary, along with coroner expenses, could be paid from the LGEA Fund. This will be corrected in our next Fiscal Year budget to be paid from the General Fund going forward. Thank you for your patience while we continue to make great efforts in changes being made to correct the above deficiencies.”