Administrator tells commissioners she'll reel in inflated budgets, demands audit trail for transfers

Administrator Francine delivered a detailed report to the Ogemaw County Board of Commissioners outlining a multi-week effort to review departmental budgets and correct accounting practices she said have left the county with inflated, opaque figures.

Francine said prior budget amendments and transfers were often made without journal entries, which leaves no audit trail. "When you go in and amend the budget, there is no trail audit," she said, adding that the county's records in BS&A sometimes show amended amounts without a clear record of who made the change. She said she plans to require all future budget transfers be recorded with journal entries to establish responsibility and transparency.

The administrator also flagged specific problems: miscalculated MERS contributions and health/ prescription caps for court insurance, ARPA fund accounting that requires reconciliation, and line items added without department head input. Francine said auditors confirmed that some fund balances—such as the sheriff's office—appear inflated when in fact fund balances are smaller after reconciliation.

Francine described a plan of individual meetings with department heads and elected officials to remove unnecessary line items and recalculate projections; she said some bills will not be paid until the correct line-item money is in place.

Francine said the work will take time and more budget amendments may be required. "We have to see what the reality of it is before we talk about any capital improvements in this budget cycle," she told the board. She also said Tracy and her office will produce recalculations for commissioners to review.

The board thanked her for the outreach; several commissioners said the new process of line-by-line review and department-level input is preferable to prior practice. The administrator said more information and formal proposals will be brought back to the board in coming weeks.