What happened to Hinds County's money? Where is it spent? How much is spent? JJ would love to tell you but there is just one problem.
Hinds County has not HAD AN AUDIT IN FOUR YEARS!
That's right. There has not been an audit of Hinds County finances since the current Board of Supervisors assumed office. The last audit was for FY 2019.
What are they hiding?
Where is the money?
Update (9:40 AM): The State Auditor's office is auditing the books for FY 2020. The audit should be completed and released in the fall. The former county auditor, BKD (Now Forvis), walked away from the audit and did not pursue the next contract.
State law does indeed require annual audits and there are penalties. However, there is a nice little escape hatch for recalcitrant governments. The State Auditor can't seek sanctions as long as the agency or government body is making a "reasonable effort" towards compliance. "Well, look a here, Shad boy, I called us an auditor, I'm waiting on them bean counters to call back or finish going over the books." Typical Mississippi.
46 comments:
How is that legal? there has to be some kind of statute somewhere
The morons at the city are proposing a tax increase and haven't done a completed audit either!! Doing budget hearings as we speak with imaginary money.
This is unreal. I live in ne Jackson and I voted for Robert graham but come on
Mississippi is not last in waste, fraud, abuse, and corruption. They are first!
Yes but Jackson is only a year behind on its audit.
The current BOS hasn't done an audit since they took office.
This is illegal, and Shad needs to enforce the law as written on these cities and counties. The timeliness of municipal audits in Mississippi is a JOKE, especially compared to other southeastern states. Most in Mississippi are at least 2-3 years behind. Shad, where are you?
Is the audit mandatory or is it just a good idea to do one? If mandatory, what are the penalties for not doing one in 4 years and who enforces the penalties?
Robert Graham is part of the problem. I hope the new sups don’t elect him President of the Board.
David Archie tried. He was just too honest and angry about the corruption and it cost him this time around..
But you better not siphon 5 gallons of diesel fuel out of the county motor grade cause Shad will lock your ass up.
"BOS" or plural "BOSS", is KF's apt acronym for the boss weasels of Hinds. Pushing this rock aside to expose a nest of major incompetence shows why KF is 'worth the big bucks'.
Doesn't the state auditor have authority to perform an audit on counties? If so, I would think this is a good case to use that authority.
Are we talking about external or internal audits?
Internal audits should be yearly and after a short while, be well refined.
External audits should NOT ever be done by the same auditor or audit firm each year.
We live in the electronic age. Every penny going in or out should be in a computer program and the supporting paper filed by month and year. Indeed, banks provide individual account holders with a decent very general audit each year.
We all can go online to our bank accounts and find every penny going in and out by date.
While it would be difficult to go back in time to the last century, this century and the last two decades should all be easily recoverable for data entry.
I can be persuaded, given the insanity running rampant in our entire nation and state so that ignorance becomes a source of pride and knowledge seen only as a means of identifying "the elite" and not something available to everyone who is literate, that even basic organizational skills have been lost to our society. Or perhaps, we are so specialized that we have forgotten that just because you do well at one skill or profession doesn't mean you innately know everything there is to know!
We had a successful Amway business owner's wife (Amway is barely legal pyramid scheme where half of their "distributors' lose money and once upon a time wouldn't have been allowed to exist) who graduated from a tiny Christian College with a focus on "reformed religion" running the Dept of Education and still influencing the GOP's education policies. What can go wrong?
If we've decided that money is the only important value and equate it with competence and ethics and even diagnosed insanity isn't a barrier. IF ethics isn't even taught anymore even in degrees in professions that have a code of ethics they failed to enforce for decades, why should we expect those we elect to see money and the power is garners as their most important life goal rather than service to their constituency?
The audit report for the 2019 financial statement was issued in May of 2022! Hmmmm ...
Bill Dees - it took three years of creative fuzzy math to clean up the books.
Condo in Gulf Shores = Repair pot holes
Tesla = Utility vehicle for pot hole repair crew
Trip to Paris Air Show - Sorry, wrong crooks
Etc.
Where the Village Big Chief holds the reins of power, we don’t need no stinkin’ audits.
@9:37 it would be extremely inefficient to have a different audit firm perform your external audit each year...
Start by finding out why the lady firm walked away from the audit.
The legislature should pass new legislation giving a deadline for audits being issued that includes penalties for the elected officials. One penalty could be no pay for the ejected officials until the audit is submitted.
How can you conduct an annual audit and employ Kenny Wayne as administrator at the same time? It's a contradiction. One or the other has to be deleted.
Looks like State Auditor is not doing his job.
There was an auditor on staff but that employee left. Kenny Wayne has not filled the position although the effort made to do so is unknown.
As for Archie, not like he and Graham brought this up.
Ha! David Archie is obviously KF's snitch.
They hired Kenny Wayne. THAT sums it up!
9:37, the Amway salesperson opining on CPA regulations. Yes, most entities, including public corporations, use the same audit firm year to year. Terribly inefficient not to.
August 29, 2023 at 9:37 AM, you were doing really well, until you pointed out one political party being the only problem, then you lost all credibility. What does being a graduate of a Christian college have to do with anything? Your bias is showing.
Regarding Bill Dees 2019 comment….counties usually get their audit done the following summer when rates are cheaper and CPA firms are not as busy. So, 2016 would get done in late summer of 2017. 2017 would get done in late summer of 2018, and so forth.
2019 was an election year. So by the time the auditors came in, in summer 2020, the new regime had taken over and run off most of the competent accountants. 2019 was under the old board, but 2020 was the new group of all stars. Just taking up for the old regime, who got their audits done every year on a timely basis. First meeting of 2020, the new board fired every competent person in sight.
What "law" are they breaking that Shad can arrest them or charge them for? What enforcement penalty exists? I'll give you a hint - there isn't one.
The clerk of the board of supervisors is the county auditor, and he shall perform the duties of auditor as provided by law. (CHANCERY CLERK)
Miss. Code. Ann. § 19-17-1 (West)
The word “clerk,” as used in this chapter, shall mean the chancery clerk acting in his official capacity as the clerk of the board of supervisors and as the county auditor.
Miss. Code. Ann. § 19-11-3 (West)
The county auditor shall keep a suitable book, in which he shall enter the accounts of all officers whose duty it is to receive or collect any money for the county, exhibiting the debits and credits, and what they represent, whether money, warrants, or bonds, and whether belonging to the general or any special fund. Such book shall be at all times subject to the inspection of any citizen of the county
Miss. Code. Ann. § 19-17-7 (West)
WRT 11:38 comment:
The 2019 audit references the BKD Letter of Engagement with Hinds County signed on January 6, 2020 for the 2019 audit which was apparently delivered on May 22, 2022.
Has it occurred to the BOS to sign any letters of engagement for audits of more recent years?
ALSO:
The 2019 audit lists some deficencies reported to the Board of Supervisors:
Information Technology
During the audits performed, certain opportunities for strengthening information technology procedures were noted as listed below.
* There are no formal written policies and procedures in place for disaster recovery over the County's information systems.
* The next part wasn't quoted because THEY BETTER FIX THIS IF THEY HAVENT ALREADY!! THIS IS ONE WAY THEY CAN GET TO NEEDING THE DISASTER RECOVERY!!
12:48, nobody in their right mind would bid on that engagement. The former audit firm resigned from the engagement after finding the 2020 financial statements unauditable after consultation with the state auditors office. That is when the engagement shifted over the Shad.
Wow, a complete four year term with no audit. I think they got audits done even back when Kenny and Doug Andersen were on the board. That says something about this crew.
@ 2:04, I suspect you might be correct, however just asking if the supervisors are even bothering to act like they are going through the motions at this point.
Or not!
Should be a record either way in minutes.
What do the minutes say about Shad?
@8:37 - you actually admit you voted for Graham the Legend?! Scary.
I have been saying this for years! About damn time!
I was told that Hinds County Maintenance cannot Pay their bills to obtain parts to repair county vehicles at the Raymond location where the majority of the county vehicles are maintained. The roads are not being patched, the grass on the right of ways is not being cut, trash is not being picked up, and pretty much you don’t see county workers out working like you used to. Hinds has the highest tax rate in the state and we are not getting crap. But the supervisors have given millions of dollars on bond projects. The Hinds parkway is being taken care of by the city of Byram and the new elaborate sign at the entrance has had a work stoppage due to non payment to contractors.
3:10, I believe BKD formally notified the board that they were stepping away and had handed the audit over to the state auditor, after consultation with Shad's office. In other words, the BOS has been sent to the principle. We shall see.
3:10, why would they? Whoever survives to the next term can blame the crazies of the last term. At least two of them got beat and two more are in jeopardy.
PS, district 4 and 5 go vote! You have 35 more minutes to save the county. Ha.
Sometimes Supervisors fire contractor.
SOMETIMES CONTRACTOR FIRES SUPERVISORS!
@1151 , actually none,because (unlike what several others had suggested earlier) Shad - the State Auditor - has no arrest powers or prosecution powers. State Auditor can refer to AG /DA for prosecution in cases where he finds reason, but doesn't arrest, and dies not prosecute.
This truth will never get posted. KF won’t post my comments calling it like it is. He must be scared of the racists truth. I refuse to bid on any of the jobs solicited by CoJ or Hinds County. I finally figured out that they were taking the bids by qualified contractors and awarding the jobs to unqualified minority contractors. Had to bid them again once the first job was paid off. What a complete disaster for the taxpayers.
9:42 says, "State Auditor has no arrest powers and doesn't arrest". Talk about blown credibility.
There are multiple examples of the State Auditor's Special Agents arresting people. Here's just one example:
https://www.northsidesun.com/crime-documents-state-press-releases/auditors-office-makes-arrest-covid-stimulus-fraud
And every time you read about one of these arrests, you see the statement, "When staff from the Auditor's office arrested Miz X, she was presented with a demand letter for X$$$".
4:36
Miss. Code 7-7-211g gives State Auditor the authority to have certified LEO on staff to investigate crimes. But the criminal case they build has to presented to local DA (or AG or feds) for charging decisions. Auditor's LEOs assist with arrest b/c its their case, not local sheriff or city cops. Auditor (rightly) does not decide to indict or charge on the same cases he investigates.
The truth of it is Governmental Accounting Standards are very burdensome, governmental entities don't have adequate and/or competent personnel to properly account for the transactions, and this leaves a mess at year end for any audit firm. Furthermore, government entities do not want to pay a decent fee for these audits so most audit firms don't do governmental audits anymore because there is less risk and more money doing them for private companies. Speaking from experience as a CPA who performs both governmental and private company assurance work.
The City of Hattiesburg was several years behind in its audit when Toby Barker succeeded Dr. Johnny Dupree PhD as mayor. Part of the consequences was Hattiesburg could not receive state-aid funds to help with road maintenance. As a result, many streets fell into disrepair. The books were poorly kept and unable to be audited. Toby got this caught up within a couple of years after assuming office and appointing competent financial personnel.
10:08 Having the same audit company every year would mean any mistakes will " carry over".
And, frankly, I think our current mayor inherited a nightmare. Jackson hasn't hasn't had a good mayor in a very long time and most of you didn't even like the ones who did a decent job. Yarber was a disaster. And, we after two deaths, we had "place keepers "who couldn't have gotten anything much done if they'd had brilliant ideas. Not only that, but our city council and worse, our county commissioners have been awful as the majority can't seem to tolerate the few competent members that managed to get elected. Indeed, hardworking politicians stand out too much in small groups so the simple minded and lazy don't get to "share" the accomplishments or limelight by warming a chair until pay day.
But, if you REALLY are worried about your tax dollars, go to an office supply store at the end of the fiscal year or a store whose agency has a charge account. The challenge in any government job is to spend your budget to zero or to charge into deficit to make sure you can justify a bigger budget the next year.
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