The Leelanau County Road Commission accepted the 2023 audit report by Rehmann at their first meeting of the month Tuesday.
Rehmann Managing Principal Steve Peacock presented the report to the road commissioners over Zoom, and the findings were largely positive.
According to the report, the auditors reviewed some of the road commission’s financial statements and performed tests on them, which disclosed no instances of noncompliance or other matters that are required to be reported under government auditing standards. Or, in Peacock’s words, the road commission earned another “gold star” from the auditing firm this year.
Peacock said that the road commission has a “significant deficiency” in internal control over financial reporting. Rehmann staff found too many account duties were being shared by the same staff members. Ideally, things like authorizing a transaction, recording it in accounting records, and maintaining custody of the assets from the transaction would be done by different people.
However, Peacock stressed that “there’s really no way for you to effectively or efficiently alleviate this report because you’re a small organization” and that the auditing firm was only notifying them because they were required to do so. Many road commissions have limited staff and resources, he said, causing their limited accounting staff to have too many duties.
“We still have a responsibility to let the board know that there is incompatible duties or segregation of duties situation that exists at the Leelanau County Road Commission. I am not in any way suggesting you go and hire five new accountants just to segregate these duties; that is not an effective use of taxpayer dollars,” Peacock said.
This was the only deficiency or weakness in Rehmann’s findings this year. As Road Commission Manager Brendan Mullane noted, last year’s report found gaps between the amount of sand and gravel reported on material usage sheets and the amount in the inventory.
Since then, they’ve adopted new systems on their vehicles measuring the amount of material used, which the auditing firm clearly found to be effective.
Also at Tuesday’s meeting, Road Commission Engineer Craig Brown reported that construction started on Gallivan Road near Solon Township last week. The project includes six culvert replacements and road reconstruction and is scheduled for completion by June 25. In the meantime, a detour is in effect.
Mullane reported that construction crews have been working to widen the shoulders after the recent paving and should be close to completing their brining on the gravel roads. According to the road commission’s board packet, construction projects on County Roads 641 and 651 and Shady Lane were completed since their last meeting. Mullane added that chip sealing operations are slated to start in the middle of the month.
