The City of Gainesville's Fiscal Year 2021 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report shows no new findings, and reveals a plan to complete the next financial report by the June 2023 State of Florida deadline.
This represents a step toward returning to routine financial operations and reporting in the wake of problems and delays going as far back as fiscal year 2018. Since fiscal year 2018, annual reports from external auditor Purvis Gray & Company recorded findings in need of attention, the most significant relating to: 1) bank reconciliations and 2) financial close and reporting. The fiscal year 2021 report repeats these findings, but city staff indicates issues are on track for full resolution. Extensive progress has already been made, including closing two other findings, accounting for grant activity and segregation of duties. An additional one, building permit revenue reconciliation, has been resolved since July 2021 with the implementation of the city's new enterprise resource planning system.
The city's success in addressing these issues is largely due to the hiring of new leadership personnel. Gainesville interim City Manager Cynthia W. Curry reviewed the Florida Auditor General and Internal City Auditor reports issued in January 2022, and escalated the findings as a priority. The Department of Financial Services, led by new Director Sue Wang, has filled four key positions including an accounting manager, senior accountant, internal control manager and financial system architect. The new additions to the Department of Financial Services complement the skills of current accounting staff and together they are prioritizing internal control, policy and procedure, and focusing on reconciliation issues.
Part of the solution involves tackling complications and delays caused by the city's 2021 adoption of its new enterprise resource planning system used to manage functions ranging from the general ledger to payroll and human resources. The transition was lengthy and brought unexpected challenges as data was moved from the old system to the new one. The delays led to a letter from the Florida Joint Legislative Auditing Committee (JLAC), reminding the city to submit the fiscal year 2021 report by the Dec. 19 extended deadline.
The financial report, approved today by the City Audit Committee and scheduled to go before the Gainesville City Commission Thursday, Dec. 15, represents a major step forward. As interim City Manager Cynthia W. Curry states, "This is the result of getting people with sufficient governmental accounting experience in place to remedy lack of attention to core but critical functions relating to financial operations."
At this time, Director Wang and her team are turning their attention to next year's reporting, which they expect to submit on time with no new findings.
The Gainesville City Commission meeting begins at 10 a.m. Thursday and will be broadcast on Cox Cable Channel 12 and livestreamed on the city's website; it will be archived online.
Original source can be found here.
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