Auditor general issues finding in Carmichaels audit
The Pennsylvania Auditor General’s office has reported that a Greene County borough was noncompliant with Liquid Fuels Tax money.
In a report recently released by the state’s auditor general’s office of an audit of liquid fuels money for the Borough of Carmichaels from Jan. 1, 2018, to Dec. 31, 2019, it was found that the borough transferred $508.02 of Liquid Fuels Tax Fund money to the borough’s general fund on Nov. 15, 2018, which is in noncompliance with the law.
That law states that each municipality must establish and maintain a special fund into which liquid fuels funds are to be deposited and where no other money may be deposited or commingled.
“The risk that Liquid Fuels Tax Fund money may be used for unauthorized purposes increases when liquid fuels money is commingled with other funds,” the report stated.
According to the report, the current secretary/treasurer for the borough doesn’t know why the transfer occurred because she was not employed by the borough at that time, and she was unable to determine what became of that money.
The state auditor’s office recommends that the borough reimburse the money to the liquid fuels fund upon official notification from the Department of Transportation, and also recommends the borough only disburses funds from the fund for expenditures incurred.
The report also stated that a prior report from the state auditor’s office recommended that the borough should reimburse $11,014.40 to its Liquid Fuels Tax Fund – $6,105.86 for failing to maintain documentation for payroll expenditures and $4,908.54 for retroactive expenditures.
“We noted that the municipality reimbursed this amount to its Liquid Fuels Tax Fund on March 19, 2020, which was subsequent to our examination period,” according to the report.