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County auditors flag payroll controls gap; supervisors agree to require signed time records and adjust pay cycle
Summary
An outside audit found missing timesheets and recommended controls. Humboldt County supervisors discussed implementing signed or auditable time records, monthly review sampling and a unified pay cycle, with an effective date proposed for Feb. 1.
County officials reviewed a letter from the outside auditors, TPA Anderson, documenting a deficiency in payroll controls for the 2024 fiscal-year audit. The auditors reported missing hourly timesheets and no timesheets available for some salaried employees, which prevented recalculation of accrued vacation and sick leave for sampled employees and created a risk of inaccurate payroll accounting.
The auditors recommended requiring employees to submit time records each pay cycle, supervisory review and documented approval of those records, and independent review of payroll calculations prior to processing. The transcript includes the auditors’ recommended language: signatures or other auditable proof of supervisory approval, monthly sampling of paychecks to verify recalculations, and maintaining documentation for each pay cycle.
County staff and supervisors discussed how to implement the recommendation. County officeholders described current informal practices — some offices already collect time sheets for hourly employees, others keep Google spreadsheets or other electronic records, and some salaried positions were recorded in the payroll system as “salary” even though pay is applied on an hourly basis. Staff agreed to provide signed or auditable time records to the county auditor’s office for each pay period so the auditor can process payroll accurately.
Officials also discussed standardizing the payroll cycle so hourly and salary employees share the same pay cycle; county payroll staff said aligning cycles would not reduce wages and would simplify payroll processing. The county agreed to prepare templates and an implementation schedule; supervisors suggested making the change effective Feb. 1 so there would be time to transition. Supervisors asked county payroll staff to circulate sample forms and a calendar of pay-cycle dates to all department heads.
No disciplinary findings were announced in the public discussion; participants framed the changes as administrative controls to satisfy audit requirements and improve payroll recordkeeping.
