One of Finance Director Rich Edwards’ chief duties is getting the City of Chickasha caught up on its delinquent audits.
The last three audits of the city’s financial ledgers were tardy, City Hall and its accountants have yet to complete the audit for fiscal year 2024, and the statutory deadline for submission of the FY25 audit is Dec. 31, 2025. “We hope to be caught up next year,” City Manager Jim Crosby told Southwest Ledger on Oct. 28.
• The audit for FY21, which ended June 30, 2021, and was due to be submitted to the State Auditor & Inspector by Dec. 31, 2021, was filed on April 18, 2023 – 16 months late.
• A 62-page audit for FY22, which was due by Dec. 31, 2022, was not submitted to the SA&I until March 12, 2025 – 26 months late.
“It was a bit of a challenge” to complete the audit, HSPG & Associates Director Andy Cromer told the City Council on March 3. HSPG was retained in June 2023 and started work on Chickasha’s audit in April 2024, he said.
During their “test work” HSPG accountants “noted instances of overpayments, duplicate payments, payments made to the wrong vendor, late payments to vendors,” and “checks were backdated,” Cromer said.
Although that audit was tardy and revealed several problems, the proverbial bottom line was positive. The city’s assets of $122.85 million were 38.585 times greater than the city’s liabilities of $3.18 million, according to accountants HSPG & Associates of Oklahoma City.
The city’s total net position increased by $5.6 million, and assets exceeded liabilities by $119.66 million. “Of this amount, $29.2 million … is available to meet the government’s ongoing needs,” HSPG reported.
At the end of FY22, the city had $2.8 million in long-term debt outstanding, “which represented a decrease of about $742,000 from the prior year,” HSPG found.
(That number has since mushroomed, since the Chickasha Municipal Authority secured a 30-year, $67,660,000 loan from the Oklahoma Water Resources Board for construction of a new water treatment plant, and the city and state agency closed on the promissory note on Aug. 10, 2023, records show.)
• Similarly, the audit for FY23, which was due Dec. 31, 2023, was not presented to the Chickasha City Council until Sept. 15, 2025 – 21 months late.
City Hall had more than 50 separate bank accounts, which “appears excessive and creates additional administrative burden to transfer and track payments between the accounts and to reconcile the accounts each month,” HSPG noted.
Also, the city had “stale” checks totaling $62,809 “that are more than two years old.” Those instruments “have not been resolved, and the payees have not been properly notified that their checks remain uncashed,” the accountants discovered.
The city “does not have a formal process for addressing long-outstanding checks.” HSPG recommended that City Hall “review its procedures to ensure expired checks are promptly addressed.”
Furthermore, that document had not yet been filed with the SA&I as of Oct. 28. Instead, records reflect that a one-page “Annual Report of Municipal Finances” – listing FY23 revenues of $37.45 million and expenses of $24.51 million – was filed with the State Auditor on Sept. 19.
The Oklahoma Tax Commission withholds a municipality’s motor fuel tax receipts until the audit of its financial records for any fiscal year are filed with the SA&I.