County treasurer says $1.76M in errors fixed

Miller County treasurer’s office records contained misstatements in revenue of $1.76 million in the general fund because of classification errors, according to findings in a state audit.

But the findings have been resolved, a county official in Texarkana said.

“The money was miscoded and not missing,” Miller County Treasurer Danny Lewis said. “Every penny has been accounted. There is no money stolen. There is no money missing. The errors have been fixed.”

Other funds contained material misstatements in assets, liabilities, fund balance, revenue and expenditures of $53,272, $18,375, $34,897, $320,543 and $15,599, according to the audit, conducted by the Legislative Joint Auditing Committee.

The audit was for the year ending Dec. 31, 2014.

The errors were made in recording revenue after the state changed the codes used in accounting procedures, Lewis said.

“The old codes were used instead of the new codes,” Lewis said.

“Every dollar is assigned a code number, and this was a new book, and there were classification errors,” he said. “Some revenues were miscoded, which means we made classification errors.”

Arkansas law requires county management to maintain financial records. The financial records contained omissions and errors, the report stated.

“These misstatements were due to unrecorded accounts receivable and accounts payable, classification errors, and posting errors. The effect of these omissions/errors constitutes a significant control deficiency in the process of preparing financial statements,” the audit findings state.

The report also stated that the treasurer’s office “had no process to periodically review and approve data changes and deletions. Without adequate supervisory oversight of changes to information, erroneous or unauthorized transactions are less likely to be detected.”

County officials touted transparency about financial matters.

“We’re transparent, and the office is open from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday,” said Leslie Ross, chief deputy treasurer.