Commissioners receive ‘clean’ county audit

CARIBOU, Maine — Aroostook County Commissioners met last week to discuss the annual independent auditors’ report, and according to County Administrator Douglas Beaulieu, the process went smoothly and Aroostook County is in good financial health.
Gisele MacDonald, CPA for Felch and Company, LLC of Caribou, who spent time with County administration — getting to know internal controls, asking questions, examining operations, and viewing how transactions were processed — attended the Feb. 4 session.
MacDonald presented her reports on the 2014 financial statements of Aroostook County and its unorganized territories at the meeting and stated, “This is a clean report and the opinion on the financial statement is there are no exceptions.”
Exhibit A of the financial statement reported where Aroostook County was at the end of 2013 with $2,033,001 in current assets, $1,477,567 in capital assets, and total assets of $3,510,568, offset by liabilities of $497,640 for a total net position or fund equity of $3,012,928.
The net cost of operating county departments such as: emergency management, public safety, law enforcement, and the fire marshal came to $3,187,436, with general revenue totaling $3,118,308.
General fund highlights in the financial report state, “the county took in $190,925 less than anticipated in revenues which was primarily due to the carryover of the registry of deeds and probate balances. There were also lower than anticipated amounts for intergovernmental revenues. These unfavorable variances were partially offset by higher than expected municipal tax revenue. The county also spent $185,183 less than anticipated which was primarily in administration.”
“[The County] had an excess in resources over appropriations of $5,742 and pretty much broke even on a budgetary basis due to good budgeting,” MacDonald said.
MacDonald admitted slight concern on internal control and compliance with laws and regulations as a result of the audit which discovered a control deficiency, but she made it clear, “we’re not saying that we found anything wrong, but we did find that one person is doing too much. What we like to see is a segregation of duties. We like to see certain duties in the accounting office separated and done by different people and the treasurer is signing checks as well as reconciling the bank account and is recording activity in the general ledger, which is very typical in a small office, and it’s hard to get away from that.”
“In a perfect world we would have more personnel here but we have to keep costs down and we’re under that constant pressure so we have to balance that,” said Beaulieu.
A clean opinion on the 2014 unorganized territories report was also given by MacDonald. Exhibit A revealed $2,150,912  in total assets made up of capital assets that are being depreciated. With liabilities totaling $44,435, the UTs were left a total net position of $2,106,477.
“We had a pretty good year expenditure wise, our expenses weren’t as high as we anticipated. It’s good to know that we’re in fine shape financially and accounting wise.
“I have not had to agonize about these audits or the findings and that’s a good thing, I hope I can just have a few more good years,” Beaulieu said.