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Following are several items
for consideration by the County Treasurer:
- There is a lack of
segregation of duties in the Treasurer’s Office in that the same
individual has the ability to collect, receipt, records
payments, make the deposits, and reconcile bank statements. We
would suggest that the process be reviewed and that the controls
be implemented in order to segregate receipting duties as much
as is practical.
- A written policy should
be prepared related to the cash collection and receipting
process an adopted County-wide. Included in this policy should
be a description of the minimum acceptable documentation
provided along with cash receipts to the Treasurer’s Office for
deposit.
- The Treasurer’s
computer system used to record cash receipts does not interface
with the Controller’s general ledger system. As a result,
amounts are keyed in a second time by the Controller’s Office to
post them to the general ledger. With the new accounting system
package being implemented by the Controller, we recommend that
an interface be investigated.
- Currently, the County
practice related to stale dated checks is to void them and not
reissue them if the payee can not be located. A policy should
be established whereby such checks are escheated to the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
- Due to a large volume
of tax receipts received at the end of the discount period, tax
receipts are taking in excess of a month to process. The
receipts are not deposited into the bank account until they are
processed. As a result, there is a large quantity of
undeposited cash and checks maintained in the Treasurer’s
Office. There is a risk that receipts could be misplaced. The
county also loses potential interest earnings on the undeposited
funds. We recommend that receipts be deposited into interest
bearing account when received. Copies of the checks could be
made and used for processing of tax receipts.
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