San Luis Obispo County Grand Jury
• 2010-2011
Gere W. Sibbach, Cpa Office of the Auditor-Controller James P. Erb, Cpa, Assistant*
⚠️ Translation Notice: This content has been automatically translated. The original English text is the official version. Translation may contain errors.
⚠️ Este contenido ha sido traducido automáticamente. El texto original en inglés es la versión oficial. La traducción puede contener errores.
Findings 1 findings
F14
The County of San Luis Obispo's Audit Division has the right to audit the accounts and records of the District. Response: We agree substantially with this finding. However, there is a small issue that we believe can be dealt with under the circumstances. Government Code Section 26909 (a) (1) contains the following language: The county auditor shall either make or contract with a certified public accountant or public accountant to make an annual audit of the accounts and records of every special district within the county for which an audit by a certified public accountant or public accountant is not otherwise provided. We have a report of audit on file for the District's 2009-2010 fiscal year by a certified public accountant. So there is a question whether the county auditor can make his own annual audit for that fiscal year. However, as of this response date there is no audit on file for the District's 2010-2011 fiscal year. Therefore it appears that the county auditor could perform audit procedures as suggested by the Grand Jury for 2010-2011 or a future year.
Recommendations 1
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R6The County of San Luis Obispo's Audit Division should consider conducting an audit of the District that would include an independent professional assessment of whether the District has the controls in place to mitigate the financial risks inherent in a conflict of interest. (Addresses Findings 5, 9, and 14) F:\WordDocs\GereWordDocs\Grand Jury\South SLO Sanitation Response June 2011.docx Presiding Judge Charles Crandall June 22, 2011 Response: The District has engaged an independent certified public accountant each year to make an audit of its accounts and records. I am also told that the District plans to rotate its principal auditor in accordance with the Grand Jury's recommendation (recommendation #7) for rotation every five years. Therefore, it does not appear cost effective or necessary for the county auditor to also perform a full audit. I would propose an alternative that in my view would better address the Grand Jury's expressed concerns. I will assign staff from our Audit Division to perform a limited review of internal financial controls at the District, with a specific emphasis on possible conflicts of interest between the District Administrator and District Engineer. I also understand that the District is adopting new contracts for District Administrator and District Engineer. I will ask Audit Division staff to review the new contracts as well and evaluate the controls under the new agreements. The Auditor-Controller has a very small Audit Division with many critical responsibilities to perform. However, in light of the Grand Jury's interest and the evolving nature of District management, we will attempt to schedule this work within the next 6 months. Our report will be addressed to the District Board of Directors, with copies provided to the Grand Jury and the Board of Supervisors for their information. Conclusion: I believe this response and our planned action meets the requirements of law and the spirit of the Grand Jury's report. Gere W. Sibbach, CPA SLO County Auditor-Controller Cc: SLO County Board of Supervisors James Grant, County Administrative Officer Board of Directors, South SLO County Sanitation District
Conclusions 1
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CL1I believe this response and our planned action meets the requirements of law and the spirit of the Grand Jury's report. Gere W. Sibbach, CPA SLO County Auditor-Controller Cc: SLO County Board of Supervisors James Grant, County Administrative Officer Board of Directors, South SLO County Sanitation District
No Responses Found 1
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San Luis Obispo County
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* This report's PDF did not contain easily extractable text and required Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for analysis. There may be minor errors in the extracted findings and recommendations due to OCR limitations with scanned documents.