LAWTON – City staff plan to complete their part of the overdue Fiscal Year 2022 audit by the end of this month, Finance Director Joe Don Dunham told the City Council last week.
Reconciliation of “what I call ‘easy items’” has been achieved on transactions through June 2022, “and now we’re working on the more difficult items,” he said. “It takes a little time to correct.”
Dunham said he hired an outside accountant to assist his staff in their efforts to complete the audit. The retired city employee is “helping us for 20 hours a week.”
“We’re aiming for Oct. 31 for completion of our part” of the FY 2022 audit, Dunham said, and “four to six weeks after that we expect to have the ’22 audit” completely finished.
Problems with the FY ’22 audit have been attributed to two issues. “That year we changed banks: from IBC Bank to Liberty Bank.” In addition, the city changed its software systems: from GEMS accounting software to Tyler-MUNIS, “and there were a lot of errors we’re having to fix.”
Reconciliation of cash accounts “is what’s causing us issues,” Dunham said.
“We had 63 separate cash accounts” when City Hall switched banks, Deputy Finance Director Kristin Huntley told the City Council on Aug. 22. A majority of those accounts were in IBC, but a few were in other financial institutions, as well, she said. The city averaged 3,300 transactions each month in the two principal accounts, Huntley said.
Getting all of the accounts reconciled is time-consuming.
As for the FY ’22 audit, “We’re still plugging along,” Dunham told the council last month. “We’re working as expeditiously as possible.”
Two auditors from outside auditing firms are expected to arrive in Lawton in mid-October and will review city records from the Lawton Area Transit System, federal ARPA funding, long-term assets, “and review our investments,” Dunham said.
Meanwhile, city staff should be tackling the audit for Fiscal Year 2023, which ended June 30 and technically is due by the end of this year. However, work on the FY ’23 audit can’t start until the FY ’22 audit is finished. “We anticipate mid-February or mid-March next year for completion of the 2023 audit,” Dunham said.