Anthony Cloud

Staff Writer

State Auditor Adam Edelen has released the audit for the Bell County Sheriff’s Department.

Edelen, releasing audits for the sheriff’s tax settlement and unmined tax settlement, the audit found sheriff Bruce Bennett’s financial statement fairly presents the taxes charged, credited and paid for the period of April 16, 2011 through April 16, 2012.

“We pride ourselves on keeping a clean audit,” said Bennett.

The only one area of weakness shown within the department involved the internal control over financial operations and reporting.

The audit report states that while Edelen was reviewing the sheriff’s internal control procedures, he identified a lack of adequate segregation of duties over receipts and disbursements.

During the assessment of the sheriff’s internal control structure, Edelen noted one employee’s duties included accepting tax payments, recording taxes paid, preparing monthly tax reports and reconciling the bank account.

According to the report, to achieve a proper segregation of duties, the aforementioned activities should be assigned to different individuals or compensating controls should be implemented to offset the lack of adequate segregation of duties.

Bennett said the reason for the inadequate segregation of duties is because the county cannot afford to employee the number of personnel needed to segregate the duties.

One suggestions made by Edelen included the rotation of employees responsible for entering paid tax bills in the computer. Edelen suggest that the employee responsible for entering the information could be randomly determined without the employee’s prior knowledge.

Edelen suggested Bennett compare monthly tax reports and disbursements to a deposit listing for accuracy. Bennett could document this by initializing the listing of deposits, according to Edelen.

Reach Anthony Cloud at 606-248-1010, ext. 208, acloud@civitasmedia.com