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Auditor reports errors in county fees; recommends continued audits and training
Summary
The county auditor presented results of fee audits covering 2024'25, reporting 14 fees audited with findings in 13 cases, $31,000 in refunds already issued, recurring documentation and calculation errors, and a recommendation to continue auditing five fees per year with targeted staff training.
The county auditor briefed the Board of Supervisors on Nov. 18 about a new fee-audit program and results from calendar-year audits covering 2024 and 2025. The auditor said 14 fees were audited and 13 showed findings such as missing supporting documentation, inconsistent time-tracking, mathematical errors and misclassification of costs.
The auditor reported the county had already issued refunds tied to audits: about $14,000 in refunds from the clerk's elections office and roughly $17,000 from the treasurer-tax-collector office. "There has been no fraud detected," the auditor said, but added that 93% of audited fees contained errors that departments are correcting.
Recurring issues included lack of time studies to support labor estimates, inconsistent treatment of benefits and overhead, rounding inconsistencies, duplicated charges and failure to offset revenues when calculating user fees. The auditor recommended continuing to audit five fees per year, issuing guidance on common findings, and offering targeted training to departments.
Board members asked about the number of fees on the master list (auditor: "several hundred") and whether errors tended to overcharge or undercharge users; the auditor said the errors ran both ways and recommended departments recalculate fees where material differences exist and issue refunds when appropriate.
The auditor also recommended consolidating enactment dates (moving to a uniform 60-day enactment) to reduce confusion and ensure consistency.
