STOLEN: Read annual audits

So the city of Coeur d’Alene has decided to stay with the accounting firm that completed all of the yearly audits during the time embezzlement occurred. Suffice it to say it is extremely difficult to identify fraud or embezzlement in a routine financial audit, but Internal Control weaknesses should have been identified. Did the audit report discuss a weakness in having one employee handle vendor expenses from start to finish? Any time a single employee is allowed to handle one area from start to finish, it should be a glaring weakness to auditors. If the auditors made no comments about this weakness I would not ask them back.

The other item of concern is have the city councilmen read the yearly audit reports or do they rely on city staff to tell them what the reports say? The city staff may see things in the report they don’t think the council needs to know about. If city staff does not want the council to read the reports, why not? The council should be getting unfiltered, unbiased third-party information whenever possible, especially when the city is paying good money to get the information. This isn’t a trust staff issue; this is about the council members making up their own minds on what the report says. Besides that, if city staff was perfect there would not have been any embezzlement in the first place.

I appreciate Councilman Gookin’s not rubber stamping the rest of the council’s vote on the accounting firm. I also appreciate Councilman Kennedy’s statement about the issue not being over.

BRUCE HANSEN

Coeur d’Alene