COUPEVILLE — For the eighth time in the past 11 years, state auditors have found problems with Island County’s bookkeeping.
Unlike past audits, this one no longer focuses on the Treasurer’s Office.
For many of her 16 years of service, former County Treasurer Maxine Sauter withstood a long-running dispute with state auditors about how to keep track of county funds. In 2002 Sauter was voted out of office. She died of an undetected cancer a week after the election.
Sauter’s successor, Linda Riffe, agreed to make the state-recommended changes that Sauter had resisted. State auditors reported that previous concerns about better internal control by the treasurer of cash receipts and property tax adjustments had been resolved by the end of 2002.
This year’s state audit for 2002 shifts attention to County Auditor Suzanne Sinclair and her staff, but as with Riffe, Sinclair is responding cooperatively.
The state auditors found that the county staff recorded more than $700,000 of federal grants during the incorrect budget year — 2002 instead of 2001. In addition, almost $400,000 of state and local grant money was also recorded in 2002 instead of 2001.
The state audit stressed the importance of keeping to the same schedule as the federal granting agencies, because those schedules are used to monitor the progress of projects.
According to the audit report, failure to have accurate grant schedules may affect the county’s ability to receive future funding.
Sinclair said she agreed with the state auditors and is already making the changes they recommended.
"It will be better next time," Sinclair said.
She said the errors happened because of an innocent misunderstanding of the timing of the grants. Applications for the grants occurred in February, so county staff applied some of the 2001 money to the following year’s schedule.
"In their mind, it was the fourth quarter reimbursement" for 2001, Sinclair said.
But it showed up on the 2002 schedule, which is unnecessarily confusing, state auditors said.
"There was never any question that the expenditures were improper," Sinclair said. "We have since educated people in the department about how to categorize expenditures from one year to another."
The projects included grants for the county’s mental health facility, a juvenile accountability block grant and transportation projects at Glendale Road, E. Camano Drive and the Terry’s Corner park-and-ride lot.
State auditors also found fault with how property taxes were computed and reported and how the Island County Fair’s bookkeeping was managed.
The errors did not rise to the level of an official finding in the audit but were still highlighted as cause for concern in a letter from the state auditor’s regional office in Lynnwood.
The letter recommended improving the county’s computer database system for recording property taxes.
Regarding the fair, the auditors recommended installing better and more timely controls of cash receipts, both from ticket sales at the gate and from fair vendors. Last year’s gate revenues were $89,186 and vendor revenues were $26,676, but fair officials do not have adequate methods in place to make sure those were complete figures, according to the state audit.
Sinclair, the county auditor, said Island County has changed the vendor fee process. Instead of charging 20 percent of their revenues, the county will now assess a flat rent based on square footage of their booths.
Reporter Scott Morris: 425-339-3292 or smorris@heraldnet.com.
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