Berwick’s audit shows minor findings

The town of Berwick received mostly clean marks on its annual audit with the exception of accidentally overdrawing about $10,000 from a bank account, the audit report said.
Berwick’s audit for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2015, was posted Monday on the state legislative auditor’s website. Kolder, Champagne, Slaven & Co. performed the audit.
The auditor issued unmodified opinions, the most favorable opinions possible, on the financial statements of the town’s governmental activities, business-type activities and each major fund including the general fund, 1 percent sales tax fund, ¾ percent sales tax liquid and solid waste fund, gas enterprise fund, and water enterprise fund and the aggregate remaining fund information, the report said.
There were three findings in the audit.
Auditors said the town overdrew its accounts payable fiduciary fund bank account for general ledger purposes by $10,583 in April 2015. Personnel performing bank reconciliation procedures did not communicate the negative cash balance to immediate supervisors, the report said.
Those bank reconciliations were also not reviewed by supervisory personnel and the negative cash position went undetected by town personnel until audit procedures were performed, the report said.
Management stated that the town will direct personnel performing reconciliation procedures to report negative cash positions and unusual, suspicious or unexplained activity immediately to supervisory personnel.
The town will also implement policies and procedures to assure bank reconciliations are reviewed by supervisory personnel on a timely basis, management said.
Berwick had a budget variance in excess of 5 percent incurred in the ¾ percent sales tax liquid and solid waste fund. Town management said they will more closely monitor budget to actual comparisons and adopt the necessary amendments to ensure compliance with state law.
Auditors stated that accounting and financial functions were not adequately segregated, but 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.