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delmarvanow.com "I am so glad that we are at this point," said Councilwoman Debbie Campbell. "The question now is how do we maintain the gain and get to the point where the audits are delivered on time?" Audit: Financial reporting stronger By Laura D'Alessandro • Staff Writer • January 9, 2009 SALISBURY -- The 2008 audit report declared the city stronger in its financial reporting than the year prior, despite missing the November deadline for the fourth year in a row. Council members said the process was a drastic improvement over last year's audit, which stirred concern for fraud after an unreconciled $10.2 million was discovered. "What a difference a year can make," said Council President Louise Smith. "This is exemplary work. (The finance department) has shown a tremendous amount of improvement." Officials said the mistake by the city's finance department left room for fraud and the 2007 auditors, Trice Geary & Myers LLC, were later hired as temporary additional staff to prevent a similar problem. Councilwoman Terry Cohen called this move a "shot of adrenaline" for the finance department. "I am so glad that we are at this point," said Councilwoman Debbie Campbell. "The question now is how do we maintain the gain and get to the point where the audits are delivered on time?" Pam Baker, representative of the city's chosen 2008 auditing firm Barbacane, Thornton & Co., said the city also gained valuable experience for its employees from the help of Trice, Geary & Myers. Baker said employees can build on their new knowledge to make their financial reporting even better. The audit recommended improvements such as initialing and approving financial journal entries, creating a policy to annually county physical inventory and the regular presentation of current financial reports to the council. The audit report breaks the city's revenue down so that residents can see how much is generated from property tax -- about 45 percent -- and how much comes from service charges -- about 35 percent. The audit also shows the city's net worth as $92.8 million, $17.6 million of which costs to run the government and is generated through taxpayer dollars. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
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