The Town of Tryon has resolved a variety of internal control deficiencies that were identified in the past four annual audits, according to Tryon Mayor Sandy Munier.
Eight discrepancies were found in 2018-2019 audit completed by Certified Public Accountant Judith K. Ballard.
Of those eight deficiencies, two of them had been repeats for four years and three were repeats of last year.
“Any deficiencies that are brought to our attention, we then try and work to correct the problems,” she said.
The two deficiencies that were repeats for four years included fire department invoices not located and inaccurate utility billing computations.
According to the audit, “none of the fire departments expenditures could be supported with proper documentation.”
During the 2018-2019 fiscal year, four disbursements totaling $4,531 were made from the fire department’s account with no invoices.
With the inaccurate utility billing computations deficiency, “rates for various levels of usage weren’t computing billings correctly in the Towns’s utility billing software system,” according to the audit.
They resolved this by contacting the utility software company.
The three deficiencies that were repeats of the year prior were internal control over customer utility payments, general fund reimbursements to Public Works Authority and depositing police fines.
According to the audit, “there were several police fines, totaling over $5,000 that could not be traced to where deposited in the bank. The amounts had been paid in cash.”
The planned action to correct this was to establish a policy where only the court clerk is to enter paid police fines into the court system.
The other deficiencies found were the sale of police vehicles, police auxiliary fund deposits and withdrawals and general fund expenditures.
According to the audit, “four police vehicles were sold during the fiscal year and none of the proceeds can be traced to where deposited into a Town bank account.”
The amount estimated between $2,1000 and $2,300.
Also missing documentation was $4,700 worth of deposits made and $4,740 worth of with drawals made to the Tryon Police Auxiliary.
According to the audit, “during the fiscal year, there were three deposits and four withdrawals made to this fund. None of the deposits, totaling $4,700 or the withdrawals, totaling $4,740 were supported by proper documentation and the Town could not properly determine what they were for.”
The deficiencies found in the General Fund Expenditures were regarding the lack of documentation for certain expenditures.
According to the audit, “three had no supporting documentation, totaling $1,253, and four were related to charges on a credit card which was not authorized by the town council, totaling $4,860.”
Now, before approving and signing checks, the Town Council is requiring documentation.
“During those past years we’ve had a lot of things going on and that’s why we’re doing a state audit,” Munier said.
Munier said she is waiting on receiving the findings from the 2019- 2020 audit.
“I’m willing to say that there’s not going to be anything on it because we’ve corrected all the problem,” she said.
Munier said she will find out more when they finish with the state audit through the Oklahoma State Auditor and Inspector.
“We’ve completely turned the town around,” she said. “Things are running really well.”