An outspoken member of the Marion County Board continued to speak out at Tuesday night’s meeting about county audits that have remained incomplete for the past several years and are holding up or causing county offices to lose out on state funding.
Brock Waggoner brought up the issue several times during the meeting claiming the past boards and county board chairperson Debbie Smith needed to take responsibility. After allowing Waggoner to make his initial points, Smith gaveled him down when he didn’t leave the issue drop. She denied the problem was the result of the county board or herself and explained the problem was being taken care of, but no date could be given when the late audits would be completed.
The final confrontation occurred after ESDA Coordinator Sherri Barker said her agency was back on the ‘do not pay’ list for state grants because of the overdue audits. She also questioned if the problem could be taken care of quickly.
Eventually, the rest of the board members voted unanimously to end Waggoner’s continuing efforts to further discuss the issue.
The county’s new auditor Whipfli has brought in an outside arm of their company to get to the bottom of unbalanced payroll funds that past auditors had allowed to continue with a notation on the yearly audit.
County Treasurer Gary Purcell told WJBD-WSIQ news the auditor has resolved the problem in all but one fund. When that work is completed, Purcell expects they will be able to complete the missing audits in a few months.
Purcell says the situation has been compounded because the county’s old auditor resigned in May 2021 at the time the 2020 audit was due without doing any of the work. The county board then had a lengthy search to find another auditor who would accept their business. Once WIPFLI was selected there were further delays until the contract was completed to cover all of the necessary audits of county governmental units.
County Clerk Steve Fox earlier indicated the audit problems stemmed from conversions between two new payroll systems that did not go smoothly.
County officials had expected to get an update on progress at a Wednesday meeting with the auditor, but it was canceled due to the person handling the project being sick.
