Marion County’s small size is the source of many of the county’s accounting deficiencies, auditor Scot Loyd of Swindoll, Janzen, Hawk & Loyd, LLC of McPherson said.

Segregation of duties continues to be a significant deficiency for the county he said. There are too many situations where one person is able to authorize, record, and make a transaction for the county. That is especially a problem for departments that have a lot of cash transactions.

However, many departments simply do not have enough people to sufficiently segregate those duties, Loyd said.

Other issues addressed included:

• In 2009, the Economic Development Department’s bank statements were not reconciled every month.
• Park and Lake Department did not always make timely deposits when business was slow.
• The treasurer’s department had one daily deposit of more than $876,000. When the office is that busy, two deposits should be made each day, Loyd said.
• Loyd also noted that the county had a statutory violation Dec. 31, 2009, when the county had $63,705 of unsecured deposits in banks. If the banks had defaulted, the county would have lost those deposits.

The audit found no cash-basis violations or budget violations, Loyd said.

In other business:

• Commissioners met in closed session for 10 minutes to discuss workers’ compensation claims. No action was taken upon return to open session.
• Road and Bridge Superintendent Jim Herzet met with commissioners in closed session for 5 minutes to discuss personnel. No action was taken on return to open session.
• The county received two checks for a total of $21,871 from Richard Nickel as dividends from Employers Mutual Insurance Company.
• Lloyd Davies of Great Plains Computers and Networking met with commissioners in closed session for 15 minutes to discuss network security. No action was taken on return to open session.