Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

JACKSON – When Northampton County received their audit report for FY24 (the fiscal year covering July 1, 2023 through June 30, 2024) in January, they were informed of several findings which needed to be corrected.

Since then, the county has hired a new Finance Officer and has composed the required response letter to send to the Local Government Commission (LGC) about what actions will be taken to correct those issues.

Northampton’s new finance officer is Leslie Edwards, who most recently was the finance officer for Hertford County. She also previously worked as Northampton County’s finance officer until January 2019.

Edwards presented an overview of the letter to the commissioners at their meeting on Monday, March 17.

One issue was reconciliations not being done in a timely manner.

“This finding is directly because of the turnover in the finance department,” Edwards explained.

She reported that the department is already working on getting caught up and they’re now current up to December.

Edwards listed several other findings that were caused by budget amendments not being brought before the commissioners. She said she’s in the process of reviewing the budget amendments that have already been done in the current fiscal year, and she will be bringing some corrective amendments to the board for approval in the coming weeks.

“These findings will go away next year,” Edwards emphasized.

Another issue was that the finance department did not set up separate funds for federal grants they received. Edwards stated that finding has already been corrected.

She went on to explain that another issue concerned documenting state lottery funds received by the school district. When the school system requests lottery funds from NC Department of Public Instruction, Edwards said the county has to verify that the funds were spent on the project they were requested for. In the past, that wasn’t being done, according to Edwards.

Edwards confirmed she has already reached out to the school district and has received the necessary documentation.

The final issue Edwards mentioned was that budgeted ad valorem tax for the General Fund was more than 3 percent uncollected.

She explained that the problem was caused by including motor vehicle taxes in that budget, which are collected by the DMV and not the county. To correct this, she will make sure motor vehicle taxes are accounted for in a separate budget.

Edwards wrapped up her presentation by mentioning what the finance department is working on to move forward. Those actions included cross-training employees to handle a variety of duties, and creating a succession plan for the finance director position.

The board thanked Edwards for her presentation.

Commissioner Keedra Whitaker said she thought the cross-training was a good idea to keep the problems from happening again in the future. Commissioner Keith Edwards expressed appreciation to the finance officer for being transparent with the information.