Town answers audit concerns

After the rather dismal audit report for Moorcroft a couple weeks ago, Cheryl Schneider, Moorcroft's Clerk/Treasurer, has spoken at length with auditor Deidre Budahl, of Casey Peterson and Associates about concerns regarding the timing and subsequent numbers with which the auditor was working.

"I asked her where she came up with the figures because I couldn't come up with the same thing," she says.

The first significant error, Schneider found, was the timing of deposits into and expenditures out of the general fund. The enterprising accounts – water, sewer and garbage – are not separated into individual accounts, they are all pooled into the general fund, according to Schneider.

"We keep it separate on our budget worksheet on Casell [the town's bookkeeping program], those enterprising accounts, revenues and expenditures both are tracked separately... so, at some point, it will look like we're subsidizing , using general fund money until that general fund money comes through. I think it's strictly just a timing issue."

Amendments to the department budgets may be affecting this seeming over-expenditure. Schneider explains that, if one department experiences an unanticipated expenditure that simply demands more funding than is available within their budget, the remaining payment must be scavenged from other departmental budgets, thus an amendment must be approved to balance the ledger or, in this case, Casell.

The practice of leaving those amendments until later in the fiscal year oft-times leaves an apparent over-expenditure within a particular budget, she says. Again, it is all in the timing.

Other numbers were significantly affected by mistakes made in the audit, according to Schneider. For instance, three smaller sewer loans were wrapped into the larger lagoon loan, but Budahl was not aware of this when she added the three again on top of the lagoon loan, raising the apparent amount owed significantly.

According to Schneider, Budahl also included the ambulance and loader loans, both of which have already been paid in full.

Schneider said that Budahl did not at that time have the adjusted numbers, but said, "It would be significantly different."

While these numbers may be askew again in the 2022 audit due to the fiscal year ending two months before the sewer loans are paid off in August, Budahl assured Schneider that they will balance out eventually; it is a matter of timing.

"I think," says Schneider, "we [the town] continually move to be more diligent on how we spend money. I think we always need to be fiscally responsible with how we spend constituent's money and we know that so, as we move along [and] it's very alarming when we hear that [over-expenditure], too. Making sure we stay within our budgets and that they're not overspent...We need to make sure we stay within that budget."

Schneider invite residents to stop by the Clerk's Office at Town Hall with any questions or concerns.