Audit raps tourist commission

The St. Mary Parish Tourist Commission’s 2012-13 audit report released this morning on the legislative auditor’s website shows the commission may have violated several laws by awarding retroactive pay raises for employees and not publishing minutes from its meetings and notice of the commission’s proposed budget, according to the report.
The commission awarded a 3 percent retroactive pay increase for the executive director and office manager, the audit stated. The audit covered the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2013. The tourist commission is also known as the Cajun Coast Visitors and Convention Bureau.
Management’s response to the retroactive pay raise stated that the board will no longer award retroactive pay increases for any employees.
The audit, performed by Kolder, Champagne, Slaven & Company, stated that the retroactive pay raises may have violated Louisiana law.
St. Mary Parish Tourist Commission Chairwoman Kim Walden said the commission was trying to be prudent during the time period issues arose with the construction of its welcome interpretative center and did not issue pay raises during that period. The board approved retroactive pay raises because board members realized the commission could afford those pay increases, Walden said. “Basically, we got penalized for being prudent,” Walden said.
On June 14, 2012, the welcome center building sagged about 4.5 feet a month before its scheduled completion date. In May 2013, the building was lifted by Expert House Movers back to its original height. The center is scheduled to open May 22.
Cajun Coast Visitors and Convention Bureau Executive Director Carrie Stansbury said her salary during the 2012-13 fiscal year was $45,011 and the retroactive raise brought the salary to $46,361. Office Manager Carmen Papania’s salary was raised from $36,050 to $37,131, Stansbury said.
The audit also found that the commission did not publish the minutes from its board meetings in a newspaper. The board response’s stated that it will publish board minutes in the legal section of the newspaper. State law requires the minutes to be published in a reasonable amount of time after the meeting, the audit stated.
Walden said the board had been advised that any meetings attended by members of the media did not require the board to publish minutes from those meetings. Because of the situation with the welcome center building, members of the media were at every meeting the commission did not publish minutes, Walden said.
Stansbury said that a previous auditor told officials that minutes from its meetings did not need to be published if members of the media were in attendance.
The audit reported that the commission did not publish the availability of the proposed budget for the year ended Sept. 30 and did not publish a notice of the time and date of the public hearing to be held on the proposed budget.
However, The Daily Review’s records show that the newspaper published the commission’s proposed budget Aug. 26, 2013.
Management responded to the finding by stating that they will publish the proposed budget and public hearing notice in a timely manner for year 2014-15 in the legal section of the newspaper.
In an email, Stansbury said, “We have addressed all the issues relative to the audit.”
The audit also reported the following:
—Unmodified opinions were issued on the financial statements of the commission’s governmental activities and each major fund.
—Material weaknesses in internal control were disclosed by the audit of the financial statements.
—Three instances of noncompliance, which are material to the financial statements and required to be reported in accordance with Government Auditing Standards, were disclosed during the audit.
—The audit found that the accounting and financial functions were not adequately segregated. The report stated that due to the size of the operation and the cost-benefit of additional personnel, it may not be feasible to achieve complete segregation of duties.
—Management and staff lack the expertise and/or experience in the selection and application of generally accepted accounting principles, as applicable to governmental entities, in the financial statement preparation process, the auditor stated. The additional costs required to achieve the desires benefit may not be economically feasible, according to the audit.