Committee presses finance staff on internal controls, ERP and Kronos during transition

Members of the Sumner County Financial Management Committee and public commenters pressed county staff on internal financial controls, the countys progress on an enterprise resource planning (ERP) budgeting system, and the Kronos timekeeping implementation during a lengthy Oct. 16 discussion about the finance director transition.

A member of the public, Charlena Allmiller, told the committee she was concerned that the finance director role carries too much control and asked what checks exist to prevent a future director from creating vendors, approving purchase orders and paying checks to accounts they control. "What internal controls would detect or prevent the next finance director from directing an employee to set up a vendor ... and then approve the payment of the check for that?" she asked.

Departing Finance Director David and interim finance staff described existing role separation and internal procedures. David said he does not receive county funds, does not write checks and is not permitted by the system to do so. The staff explained that vendor setup and check writing are segregated functions and that the office maintains standard operating procedures (SOPs) and audit logs to track changes in permissions.

Staff acknowledged the county has not fully moved to an automated budgeting solution. The finance director noted that a full ERP budgeting module had been considered as part of an earlier ERP implementation but that the annual cost was about $80,000, so the county has prioritized Kronos first and planned the budgeting module for a later phase. Staff said Munis (the countys ERP product) currently interoperates with budget tracking via Excel imports and that full automation was previously resisted by some departments.

Committee members and staff discussed procurement thresholds and the technical question of how the states bidding statute is interpreted for aggregated purchases. Finance staff said county practice remains conservative and aggregates purchases annually while they await clarifying guidance from the state and CTAS (County Technical Assistance Service). Members noted that changing from monthly to annual aggregation could change the number of purchases requiring formal bids or quotes.

Multiple committee members volunteered to provide transition support. The mayor and other commissioners offered to hold regular, informal meetings with interim finance staff to monitor the transition and to expedite the search for a new finance director.

No formal policy changes were adopted at the meeting; staff said they would return with clarifying legal guidance on aggregation and continue to move forward on Kronos and subsequent ERP budgeting phases.