Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Municipal Finance Audit topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Lebanon delays start of FY2025 financial audit after accounting conversion discrepancy
Summary
City staff told the council they postponed the FY2025 audit after discovering a roughly $75,000 discrepancy tied to a data conversion into a new financial system; the issue appears isolated to internal utility reconciliations, staff said.
City staff announced at the council meeting that the start of the fiscal year 2025 financial audit was postponed after staff discovered a reconciliation discrepancy in the city—anking records. Troy (staff member) told the City Council the issue stems from the conversion to a new financial system and that as of the update "we're about $75,000 long in the bank versus where we've got so the bank's got more money than we think it should have." He said the discrepancy appears to be inside utility transactions rather than customer accounts.
The delay will push the auditor's planned start date back from next week, Troy said, because staff do not have a balanced set of books for the auditors to review. He said the staff has been troubleshooting the data conversion and that most other funds and tax accounts are ready to generate financial reports. "The good news is we're on the right side of the equation from my standpoint," Troy said, adding that the issue is with internal transactions rather than customer accounts.
City staff said they have begun the application process to fill the director of finance position but do not plan to finalize that hire until the conversion issues are resolved. Troy said staff had made progress and hoped to produce reports for other funds while dedicating additional effort to reconcile the electric utility transactions believed to contain the error.
The council did not take a formal vote on the audit schedule at the meeting; Troy characterized the change as a staff decision to delay the audit's start until the books are reconciled. Council members asked for follow-up updates; no firm new audit start date was given during the session.
The change could affect the timing of publicly released audited financial statements; city staff said more information would be provided once reconciliations are complete and the auditors can begin work.
