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County controller presents audits: supervision fees, jail commissary, hotel tax and bonded indebtedness
Summary
The county controller summarized multiple audits and agreed‑upon procedures including the offender supervision fee performance audit, a jail commissary/inmate-phone review, a Wilbur Mansion hotel‑tax remittance check, and the county statement of bonded indebtedness.
The Northampton County Controller’s Office presented several completed audits and agreed‑upon procedures to the finance committee, summarizing findings and management responses.
Florina Tang, auditor, presented a performance audit of the county’s offender supervision fee covering July 1, 2021 to June 30, 2022. Tang said the program operates under PA Act 35 of 1991 and Pennsylvania Code Title 37, chapter 68, and that the county’s clerk of courts and adult probation office share duties for assessing and posting supervision fees. The audit reviewed 25 cases and found seven cases where paperwork tracking and notifications between adult probation and the criminal division were incomplete; two cases involved $1,830 in fees that were never entered for defendants transferred into the county, and five cases involved fees not removed for defendants transferred out. The controller’s office recommended better electronic memo routing and random monthly testing; management (Chief Adult Probation Officer Paul Sigley, per the audit) said adult probation has instituted electronic memo procedures and will improve coordination with the criminal division.
The controller’s office also reported an agreed‑upon‑procedure review of the jail commissary and inmate telephone operations for January 1 to March 31, 2025. The review tested commissary receipts and Keefe price lists and found prices and totals matched for sampled items; Keefe staff could not locate two receipts, so signatures on those two could not be confirmed. The review also checked inmate‑telephone rates and found the jail’s vendor (Global Tel Link, GTL) charged 16 cents per minute, which the auditors reported was compliant with FCC guidance in effect in 2024.
A separate agreed‑upon procedure reviewed the Wilbur Mansion (license 169) hotel‑room rental tax remittances for 2023–2024 and found the operator overpaid $318.19; auditors reported remittance forms were generally filed on time but that some remittance forms did not always include actual tax‑collected information, which complicated comparisons.
Finally, the controller’s office certified the county’s statement of bonded indebtedness for the period ending Dec. 31, 2024, and projected a total liability for 2025 of about $63,906,448 (the report itemized transactions for 2024 and projected anticipated 2025 activity). Committee members asked whether a recently authorized parking‑garage bond would be reflected; the controller said it would appear in 2026 once the bond closed and payments began.
Why it matters: The audits identified internal‑control issues that the controller’s office said have been corrected or are being addressed, including updated procedures to ensure supervision fees are accurately posted and monthly testing to detect discrepancies. The jail and hotel tax reviews showed general compliance with governing rules in the sampled periods.
