The Pulaski County Council is preparing to move forward with the development of internal controls.
During Monday’s Council meeting, County Attorney Kevin Tankersley explained the state mandate to combat potential fraud and outline procedures for handling money at the local level. Estimates have put the cost between $20-thousand and $50-thousand to complete the work.
Tankersley says this is designed to protect the county from itself.
“I would say I don’t know that we’ve had fraud issues in the past, but what they would say is that you don’t know that you’ve had fraud issues in the past,” says Tankersley.
Pulaski County appears likely to employ the services of accounting firm Crowe Horwath to help analyze the county government’s current procedures and develop solutions to combating gaps in money handling practices.
Tankersley held a teleconference with the company to discuss Pulaski County’s needs and how they might differ from a larger operation such as Lake County. Apart from analyzing the current process, Crowe Horwath is also poised to develop revised internal controls.
Tankersley says the firm will also help them define their losses.
“What do you considered to be a material breach?” says Tankersley. “You’re going to find accounting errors, you’re going to be missing a few dollars here and there. The question is: what do you consider material?”
A committee will likely be setup to oversee the changes being required by the state.
Work will begin shortly with payments expected partially out of this year’s budget and partially out of 2017.
