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Local bookkeeper tells Oak Hill commissioners miskeyed entries are undermining budget forecasting
Summary
Drew Ann Welch, a resident and experienced QuickBooks user, told the commission she found repeated miskeyed budget and actual entries—some revenues and expenses posted to incorrect line items—and urged commissioners to demand higher standards and corrective action.
At the Oak Hill budget workshop, resident bookkeeper Drew Ann Welch told commissioners she has tracked the city's actual-versus-budget reports and found pervasive miskeyed entries that make forecasting unreliable. "When bills are being entered in, you're looking at the wrong line item, therefore your totals are wrong," Welch said, noting prior audit reports identified similar issues and that the problem persists.
Welch described having reviewed multiple years of auditor and budget reports and said the errors include revenues posted to incorrect accounts and expenses entered into wrong line items. She urged commissioners to hold staff accountable for correcting entries and to rely on reconciled, month-by-month budget comparisons rather than single-column totals so the city can set realistic budgets going forward.
