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Glacier County reviews accounting glitches, canceled checks and payroll claims
Summary
County officials reviewed recent accounting problems including three canceled checks to vendors (one to UnitedHealth), a wire transfer to correct payments, and bank‑account practices to manage FDIC exposure; staff said they expect paperwork fixes within days.
Glacier County officials spent a portion of the Dec. 18 meeting reviewing accounting and banking issues that surfaced amid routine claims processing.
The county’s finance officer told commissioners she discovered three checks that had not been processed correctly and that UnitedHealth notified the county that it had not received payment for a claim. Staff canceled the original checks, issued replacements, and initiated a wire transfer to complete the payment while the county’s accounting vendor helped identify the problem.
"She helped me out, and we found out that... UnitedHealth... called us and said they never received it," the finance officer said in the meeting. Staff credited a county employee and an experienced contractor for spotting and resolving the issue in the accounting system.
Commissioners discussed characteristics of the county’s accounts (three accounts locally and one in Browning with limited draw capability) and described a practice of transferring funds between accounts when balances approach FDIC limits. Officials also noted challenges with the county’s Black Mountain accounting software when an unexpected data discrepancy occurs and mentioned QuickBooks as an example of a system that flags some errors.
Other routine business: commissioners signed payroll claims, discussed upcoming meetings and scheduled their next full meeting for Tuesday, Dec. 23 in Browning. The record also included brief ceremonial remarks and recognition of staff and upcoming retirements.
What remains unclear: the meeting record shows the finance officer expects the paperwork to be complete in a day or two but does not list dollar amounts for the disputed items; the transcript identifies the vendors and internal contributors by name but does not quantify total dollar impacts in the public record.
