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Legacy accounting system and payroll posting errors blamed for audit problems, consultant says
Summary
City CPA consultant told the budget committee that an aging accounting package and lumped journal entries obscured vendor-level payroll and AP detail, complicating reconciliations; staff reported improvements for later months but said FY24 remains closed and harder to fix.
A city CPA consultant described the technical root causes auditors flagged: a legacy accounting package that requires closing a fiscal year and provides limited vendor-level access once closed, combined with processes that relied on aggregated journal entries rather than vendor detail.
"It's not that we don't know where the million dollars is ... We know exactly what went into the bank account and what went out of bank account," the CPA consultant said, stressing the problem was system and process limitations rather than suspected theft or misappropriation. The consultant added that staff hired with relevant experience have begun cleaning and reconciling more recent months and that FY25 work is expected to reduce these issues going forward.
