LIMESTONE, Maine — Certified public accountant Tim Poitras of Chester M. Kearney presented findings of Limestone’s annual audit to the selectmen on Apr. 3, citing four issues in particular: the timing of bank reconciliations, payroll not being recorded, financial reporting, and the handling of outstanding taxes.
Poitras was understanding of these issues, as Limestone had gone without a permanent town manager for over a year.
“Given the turnover in the town manager position,” he said, “it was probably going to be difficult to fix those issues without someone at the helm truly dedicated to the task.”
For bank reconciliations, he said he found that they “were not being done on a monthly basis,” adding that it’s “very important” for that to happen. He acknowledging that audit was for the period prior to June 30, 2018, and that the town may have started doing the reconciliations monthly by this point.
Payroll concerns, he said, also go back to the prior year, as “some issues were caused by outsourcing payroll services,” which was recently brought back in-house, but “again, wasn’t all recorded.”
“That should be done, and it is being done now,” he said. “The payroll process through TRIO [municipal accounting software] is posted on time but the manager should be reviewing payroll and verifying timecards to make sure everyone is getting paid the right amount for their time.”
For financial reporting, he said he and staff at the Chester M. Kearney tax and accounting firm “had to do a lot of significant adjustments at year end to get the statements correct,” adding that this is not something the auditors should be doing.
“The information coming out of TRIO is only so good,” he said. “If there are errors in TRIO, it makes it harder on selectmen and department heads to prepare the budget each year. There should be a monthly process to review finances.”
As for outstanding taxes, he said, most involved personal property taxes, as the town can use the lien process for real estate taxes.
“Personal property is much more difficult,” he said. “The only true recourse you have is small claims court and it’s up to the board if you want to pursue that. Generally you owe it to taxpayers as a whole to collect taxes. If half of the town isn’t paying, then why does the other half of the town have incentive to do it?”
He said these were mostly repeat findings from the previous year, reiterating that this audit shows an improvement over last year and adding that “there’s still some work to be done.”
Selectboard Chairman Tom Albert agreed that bank reconciliations should have been done “every single month,” and Poitras said the process should only take “an hour to wrap up” if done monthly.
Selectman Chris Durepo asked if the town should outsource any of its bookkeeping. Poitras said advised against this as the town staff should familiarize themselves with the financials and also because it is difficult to find contract bookkeepers.
“Every good one I know isn’t taking clients,” he said.
Town Manager Elizabeth Dickerson said that she has been dedicating a significant amount of her time to bookkeeping and suggested this task stay within the town.
“You begin to learn it organically,” she said, “and almost learn the organization in your soul. We’re really working as a team on this, and I’m learning more about the way things are being done. We’re starting to firm up things on these accounts, and every week there’s a new thing we peel back and learn we could do another way.”
Poitras agreed with Dickerson, and said that “once you get a routine, things will fall into place. It’s just a matter of getting some procedures in place and a routine down.”
With no more questions from the board, Albert thanked Poitras for his presentation.
