A state auditor’s report on Lynnwood will cause the city to miss its deadline for completion of its annual audit for a second consecutive year.
State auditors have found unexplained charges from various departmental funds to the general fund in 2011 financial reports. For example, the cost of information technology and human resources are divided among the police department, the parks department and other departments, but a recent state audit found that the city hadn’t adequately explained those allocations.
Auditors gave the city the options of either having an incomplete audit or taking time to clean up its financial reports. The city chose to take the extra time to correct the information, meaning that the city will be late with its audited financial reports for a second consecutive year.
Such late reports can cause the city to lose out on some federal grants, but a representative of the state auditor’s office said Wednesday that cities rarely lose grant money because of late reports,
Neither Mayor Don Gough nor City Financial Director Lorenzo Hines was available for comment Wednesday afternoon.
Evan Smith can be reached at schsmith@frontier.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.