Northwest Iowa — A state audit of the 99 Clerk of Court offices in Iowa shows some issues with having enough oversight of the fines and other funds that come into the offices.
The annual audit shows the funds are often handled by one person and there needs to be adequate checks on their work — especially when cash is involved. Deputy State Auditor Andy Nielsen says the administrators are working to improve the situation. According to the Nielson, most of the issues raised were due to an insufficient number of employees in a particular County Clerk’s office to allow for segregation of some duties.
As an example, here in northwest Iowa the audit noted that the Clerk’s Offices in Lyon and Osceola counties lacked segregation of responsibilities for incoming mail. Specifically, it said that incoming mail was not properly opened by an employee who does not act as a cashier, or perform daily receipt balancing. In addition, the report said, responsibilities for receipt collection in Lyon and Osceola Counties are not segregated from those of deposit preparation and the daily reconciliation function. The report noted that in the Lyon County Clerk’s Office responsibilities for the preparation of the bank reconciliation are not segregated from the duties of check signing and the control of cash. It said bank accounts are not reconciled by an individual who does not sign checks, handle or record cash. In addition, the audit found that in Lyon County, checks are not signed by an individual who does not record cash receipts or otherwise participate in the preparation of checks. The audit report also noted that, in Osceola County, receipts are not posted to the Iowa Court Information System by an individual who is responsible for setting up the case on the system.
The audit report had only one issue with the O’Brien County Clerk’s Office, that being that the individual in the office who opens the mail or the traffic clerk has the ability to delete cases. No issues were found in the Sioux County office.
It should be stressed that there were no inconsistencies found in any of the Clerk’s offices by the annual audit. Deputy State Auditor Andy Nielsen said all the issues mentioned in the report are due to some of the smaller county’s Clerk’s offices having only one or two employees, making segregation and oversight more difficult. Nielsen noted that the number of items found were down substantially from the previous year. He says over the last few years the Clerks have continued to identify and take care of any issues, which Nielsen calls “a good thing from the standpoint of the auditors, and the taxpayers.
To view the complete audit report, click here.
