Council puts additional appropriations on hold

Move comes as county completes transition to new accounting system

The Lake County Council is putting a hold on any new appropriations until the auditor’s office can complete the documentation showing the county’s exact cash balances.

Council President Christine Cid, D-East Chicago, said any new appropriation out of the general fund would have to be deferred when the council meets Tuesday until its March meeting to give the office more time to complete the work.

Scott Schmal, the county’s financial director, said this is the first time the auditor’s office is trying to close the books without HTC, the consultant originally hired to transition the county to a new Oracle accounting platform.

The transition was thrown into chaos last year when the Indiana State Board of Accounts in August ended its audit of the county’s finances because it did not have the required forms showing accurate cash balances for the SBOA to review.

In the aftermath, officials hired accounting firm Baker Tilly to determine what went wrong, fix the problem with the forms and create a path forward to ensure the transition and software both were working properly.

Schmal said he advised the council to give the auditor’s office a little more time to ensure everything is accurate before it is sent downstate. Scott said if they use a figure that is not finalized – regardless of whether it is more or less than the current cash balance – and it changes when finalized, that change has to be sent to DLGF.

“This is not because I’m worried we don’t have the money,” Schmal said. “It’s a credibility issue.”

Any new appropriation request must be sent to the Department of Local Government Finance for approval. DLGF as part of its approval process wants the financial information and right now it is still being reconciled.

“I don’t want to have credibility issues with the DLGF. Right now, we don’t have them with them. We want to make sure we use exact numbers, not estimated,” he said.

Auditor John Petalas said the office knows the account balances as far as bank statements, but the paperwork for DLGF is not quite ready. He said the office will be ready by the council’s next meeting.

Petalas said the office has been meeting with Baker Tilly every week and he feels good about the work that has been done. The firm is on target to be ready by March 1 with the forms for 2022 that are needed by the SBOA to complete its audit.

“Overall, everything is going on par. Everything is going well,” Petalas said. When asked how he feels about the transition to the Oracle platform Petalas said he is “a thousand times better now”.