Island County was cited by the State Auditor’s Office for “significant deficiencies” in its financial reporting.

Washington counties are required to submit financial statements annually that are then reviewed by the office for financial accuracy and accountability.

“We were late getting our financial statements to the State Auditor’s Office because we had to reopen the books on five separate occasions. It was extremely disappointing.”

– Sheilah Crider, Island County auditor

This year’s financial audit “identified deficiencies in the design or operation of internal control over financial reporting that we consider to be significant deficiencies,” according to the finding documents.

The reports are compiled by Island County Auditor Sheilah Crider’s office which has seen a high degree of turnover in the last year.

The state auditor found that Crider’s staff changes contributed to the county reports’ lack of accuracy.

“The county experienced turnover in the positions primarily responsible for the creation of the financial statements and has not dedicated the necessary time, resources and oversight to ensure accurate financial reporting,” the state auditor concluded.

Crider said she has indeed lost five people to other Island County departments or out-of-state moves over the past year.

Crider said she has had a fairly static team of good accountants for several years, but they all moved on to advanced, better-paying positions.

However, she said the turnover was not the only contributing factor to the state audit finding.

Crider said a couple of the county’s departments missed the May deadline to submit data to her office and the county ended up filing 44 days late.

“We were late getting our financial statements to the State Auditor’s Office because we had to reopen the books on five separate occasions,” Crider said. “It was extremely disappointing.”

Island County Budget Director Elaine Marlow, who sat in on the state auditor’s exit meeting, said the main concern was that a couple of the line items had been misclassified, a mistake that was fixed before the audit was complete.

Marlow stressed that no money was misplaced. Marlow said she had completed these reports for several years for the county and that small mistakes can occur despite best attempts to make them perfect.

State auditors also noted other errors in the financial statements “when taken together impair the understandability of the financial report,” the audit report stated. “The errors required us to perform additional audit procedures to ensure correct reporting.”

The state went on to say that the errors found may create an environment where additional misstatements could occur and not be prevented or detected by the county.

The state recommended that the county provide additional training to its financial accountants and establish a more effective review process.

State auditors said they will review the county’s progress on this front at their next annual audit.

The financial audit report’s accompanying accountability audit report found no problems.