Thurston County earns its sixth clean state audit in row
A Washington state audit found no significant faults with the Thurston County’s financial condition or accountability in 2020.
The State Auditor’s Office published their audit reports on the two topics on Sept. 2. This is the sixth year in a row that the county has received clean financial and accountability audits, county auditor Mary Hall said in a Wednesday news release.
“Credit for the clean audit goes to our talented staff and sound financial policies,” Hall said. “Our county-wide culture of financial best practices has resulted in clean audits for the last six years.”
Hall’s office oversees financial services across county government in addition to managing elections, records, licensing and passport services. The state’s audit team worked with her office over the last two months to complete the audit, according to the release.
“County staff were friendly and easy to work with,” read the SOA’s report in part. “Supporting documentation was provided in an organized and timely manner. Staff were open and welcoming of recommendations for improvement.”
The final accountability report says county operations complied with applicable state law and local policies, and provided “adequate controls” to safeguard public resources.
Rather than investigate every facet of county government, the report says the audit focused on areas with the highest risk for fraud, loss, abuse or noncompliance.
Specifically, the state examined payroll, cost allocation plans, cash receipting, accounts payable, procurement and open public meetings. They also looked at the county’s compliance with the Eviction Rent Assistance Program which started in August 2020.
Additionally, the state audited the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office, including their evidence room, disposition of property, drug seizure and forfeiture, citation reconciliations, their use of confidential funds and cash receipting.
The financial report notes the audit found no deficiencies, weaknesses or instances of noncompliance in financial statements or internal controls over major federal programs such as coronavirus relief funds.
The last time the State Auditor’s Office found issue with Thurston County was in a 2014 financial and federal report that was published in 2015. In that report, the state found the county failed to report two subawards stemming from a federal grant allocation.
Though the county’s audits have been clean the past six years, the county reported an instance of fraud in April. In that case, the county misappropriated at least $5,086 in a payroll by paying an employee for time they did not actually work in 2020, the Olympian previously reported.
The state published a similar fraud report in December 2020, concerning a county employee that was paid $3,295 for time they did not work from 2018 to 2019, according to the State Auditor’s Office.
Complete audit reports for 2020 and years prior can be found on the State Auditor’s Office website.
This story was originally published September 8, 2021 at 1:48 PM with the headline "Thurston County earns its sixth clean state audit in row."
