County writes off $274,629

With the strokes of their pens Whitman County commissioners wiped $274,629 off the county’s ledger books Monday.

For years, the county ledger has recorded a different amount of investments made by the county than has been shown on actual bank statements.

Monday’s move brought the ledger totals into accordance with the bank statements.

Treasurer Robert Lothspeich presented the final figure to Commissioners Pat O’Neill and Greg Partch Monday. Commissioner Michael Largent missed Monday’s meeting because of a family emergency.

The discrepancy in the books came to light in the state’s audit of Whitman County’s 2009 financial statement. Lothspeich noted the 2009 statement was the first to be fully audited since 2003. Incomplete information on the annual statement had prevented accurate audits.

For the past several months, Lothspeich has been working with a contracted accountant from the Anderson Peretti firm of Spokane to target exactly the difference between the county ledger and bank statements.

“It seems like we’ve been looking for this number for quite some time,” said Lothspeich.

Since August, the discrepancy figure has fluctuated from $446,000 to $186,000. Lothspeich said the prior numbers were the result of incomplete reviews of bank statements.

The write-off, said Partch, was needed to give the ledger a zero balance before the county flips the switch on the half-million dollar New World accounting software which it purchased in 2005.

“Obviously, we have to do this to go into New World,” said Partch.

Lothspeich said the problem stemmed from a large number of bank accounts opened with the county’s tax identification number without the county’s knowledge.

Several park, fire and cemetery districts, as well as the Whitcom dispatch center, opened accounts under the county’s tax number without notifying the treasurer’s office.

In December, Lothspeich sent letters to the junior districts explaining the process of setting up their own tax identification.

“I talked to Patti (Kelly) at Whitcom and she told me ‘If I would have known it was this easy I would have done it a long time ago,’” said Partch.

Lothspeich added the complicated system of recording payments made out of those accounts between the auditor’s office, the treasurer’s office and banks resulted in some transactions not being recorded.

Lothspeich said one of his employees over the past couple years spent 25 hours a month verifying those transactions.

Lothspeich said the New World system will give county officials real-time records of bank transactions, which should keep the records in balance in the future.

New World will record the transactions and balance the ledger each day.

Lothspeich added he will seek a single bank to hold county investments in the future.

“Which will eliminate the out of balance issue,” he told commissioners.