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Dunn County committee adopts policies on internal audit, capital improvements, p-cards and debt management
Summary
The Committee on the Department of Administration approved four draft financial policies after staff described changes designed to address prior audit findings and to set controls before a planned ERP rollout.
The Dunn County Committee on the Department of Administration voted unanimously to approve four draft finance policies — internal audit, capital improvements, credit-card (p-card) management and debt management — after staff said the rules will tighten controls, clarify cash handling and guide long-term spending decisions.
County Manager Brianna, speaking to the committee, said the policies "will be approved by the Committee on Administration as the finance arm of all things other than budget." The committee moved and seconded the motion and recorded unanimous approval.
The policies are intended to respond to auditor findings cited in recent reviews, staff said. The internal audit policy will expand internal testing beyond p-cards to include cash handling and disbursement procedures; staff plan a first internal audit of p-card use in April and will report sample findings to the committee. The county also has completed p-card training for employees who use or handle p-cards and intends the internal-audit work to test whether employees are following the new rules.
Under the revised capital improvement policy, staff said, the county will treat traditional "bricks and mortar" capital projects differently from routine purchases. The committee discussed a threshold change: capital items generally will be prioritized for the county's capital improvement plan only if they are unfunded and exceed $100,000, or if they meet a threshold amounted to roughly 7% of a department's operating budget. Smaller purchases that already have an identified funding source will be handled through the operating budget but will still be visible to the capital planning process.
Staff explained the debt management policy will help ensure borrowing matches the useful life of assets and will support multi-year planning so large replacements (for example, HVAC systems) can be staged and funded without surprises.
Finance staff said the policies were drafted with input from the county's external auditors and the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA). The committee was shown a procedural document (not adopted at the meeting) that lists attributes internal auditors will test, drawn from the p-card policy, including whether purchases are county business and whether reconciliations are timely and supported.
Committee members asked for clarifications about how the policies would apply to the county fair and other county activities that both spend and receive cash. Staff confirmed cash-receiving and cash-management procedures will apply to the fair if it uses county p-cards or receives revenue handled by county staff. Staff also said they would tighten separation-of-duties controls with the Treasurer's Office as part of the audit follow-up.
The policies will remain with the Committee on Administration as the county's finance oversight body; staff said they did not intend to forward all four to the full county board at this time. The committee scheduled the first internal audit reporting to begin following the April sampling work and training results.
