STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga. – A recent 2024 fiscal year audit report for Stone Mountain resurfaced some familiar problems and found some new ones.
During a presentation at the March 3 Stone Mountain City Council meeting, auditor CKH Group noted that organizational turnover within the city under a previous council and city manager undermined the finance department’s effectiveness.
Among the findings from prior years was the misuse of Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax funds and inadequate segregation of duties among city staff. The audit contained new findings that showed there was inadequate record maintenance and a lack of written procedures.
Stone Mountain had a municipal election in the fall that saw voters radically overhaul the city council, including a new mayor and new council members. This audit did not cover the time period wherein the former mayor Beverly Jones took sole control of the city’s bank accounts. An independent investigation found she did not misuse any funds.
Auditors were complimentary of the current city staff, which includes a new city manager and finance director. They said the city’s general fund is in a strong financial position.
CKH representative Eon Van Wyk presented a less-than-glowing picture of the city’s financial management.
Van Wyk reported that since 2001, the city has missed out on a little less than $500,000 in revenue from uncollected fines, 75 percent of which are no longer collectible.
The full audit report, available to be viewed here, states that in fiscal year 2024 SPLOST funds were used to cover legal fees. SPLOST money can’t be used for legal fees, the auditor said. Decaturish asked city staff about the specific incident or incidents this finding referred, but the city has not yet responded.
Another repeat finding was the “inadequate segregation of duties.” The report noted this as an area of “significant deficiency.” The report recommended implementing a secondary review of day-to-day financial documentation for items such as payroll and accounts payable.
“Having someone look over your shoulder protects the person doing the work and the rest of the people that work there,” Van Wyk said.
The other area the report identified as a “significant deficiency” was in “written procedure and documented guidance.”
This report found that Stone Mountain lacks formal instructions for key processes, and that these instructions should not only be created but also, going forward, reviewed annually to ensure consistency and compliance.
Van Wyk said Stone Mountain is suffering from a lack of institutional knowledge; even though new people have been brought in to address the city’s financial needs, persistent knowledge gaps hinder effectiveness. This is made worse by the previous finding of a lack of written procedure, as well as another finding of inadequate record-keeping. Van Wyk said that the city’s financial system was still majority paper-based and recommended moving to a digital-based system.
“Every time you bring in a new resource or consultant, it’s costing you money since this person has such a learning curve,” Van Wyk said. He noted the extra time it takes to coordinate between city staff and consultants to find information when it’s needed, since frequently, there isn’t someone in the organization who can answer questions as they come up. Then, the work to find the answer often involves manually looking for it among piles of documents with limited guidance on where to look.
According to Van Wyk, these impediments caused the city to miss the Dec. 31 deadline to file the fiscal year 2024 audit, which could result in the loss of funding due to being out of compliance with grants or being ineligible for them, as well as potential cash flow disruptions for infrastructure projects.
City Manager Maggie Dimov spoke after the presentation of the report.
“Why these things haven’t been done in the past I can’t speak on, but under my management, we are going to do better,” Dimov said. “These are not problems but areas for improvement.”
In other news:
— The city approved the use of the baseball fields at Leila Mason Park by A1 Group. The group’s initial request included an offer to build a dugout at the park, but this part of the request was denied. While discussing the item, the council mused about returning to this possibility in the future if the offer still stood.
— The city also approved $81,400 for repairs to the McCurdy Park Fitness Court. This amount is made up of $67,655 for parts and $13,745 for the installation. The city’s insurance is expected to cover most of this cost, with the city only paying its $5,000 deductible.
This story was provided by WABE media partner Decaturish.
