OCEAN CITY – A summary of the internal auditor’s quarterly report revealed the town’s financial accounts and practices appear to be in order for the most part.
On Tuesday, Internal Auditor Karin Scott presented the Mayor and Council with a report on her findings for the second quarter of 2023. In addition to auditing the town’s contracts with companies such as Centerplate and Covanta, she told officials this week she also evaluated the town’s zero read meters, which were given a rating of “needs improvement.”
“At this point, public works is looking to replace non-working zero read meters,” she said. “Since March 13 they’ve replaced 257 meters. So they are on the right track to get meters replaced.”
Scott told the council this week the town had set aside funds in the fiscal year 2024 budget to replace the meters. She added that the public works and finance departments continue to identify meters that need to be replaced and conduct accurate billing.
“I think they are on the road to getting that all straight,” she said.
Council Secretary Tony DeLuca noted that the audit of the town’s meters was the only audit with a rating of “needs improvement.” He questioned how many meters still needed to be replaced.
“Of non-working meters, there would be another 93 …,” Scott replied. “Then we have to address meters that are older and not working as well as they should.”
Scott told officials this week she also continues to audit the town’s procurement cards. In the most recent quarter, 2,754 transactions were made totaling $807,000.
“For all four quarters in fiscal year 2023 there were 10,387 transactions and they totaled $3.3 million for the town cards,” she added. “In this quarter, there were 54 transactions that had to be followed up on for various reasons, whether it was sales tax being paid or receipts missing.”
Scott noted that she also continues to monitor payroll – which indicates some positive movement in the number of overtime hours being spent – and timekeeping.
“We are also working on a timekeeping audit to ensure that the town departments are accurate and consistent in all their timekeeping practices and following state law and federal law,” she explained.
While an outside auditor is hired to complete assessments of the town’s expenditures and revenues, an internal auditor position was created in 2021 to keep track of items such as invoices, procurement cards, payroll and overtime, among other things.
Each quarter, the internal auditor provides a report on which audits have been completed and which are pending.
