Montgomery County’s Department of Finance is having trouble completing its accounting for the last fiscal year.
As a result, the department’s director, Joe Beach, asked the County Council’s Government Operations and Fiscal Policy Committee for $400,000 to pay accounting firm Clifton Gunderson to help the county meet state and federal deadlines.
The county’s “Comprehensive Annual Financial Report” (CAFR) should be completed by the end of January with the additional help, said Beach, leaving Clifton Gunderson a brief window to complete the federally mandated audit of federal funds received by the county before the deadline of March 15. The fiscal year ended June 30.
The county likely will have to seek extensions from the Maryland Department of Legislative Services’ Office of Legislative Audits and the Government Finance Officers Association, both of which require the CAFR by Dec. 31. However, the federal deadline for the audit cannot be extended. If the county misses the March deadline, the county will have to submit additional audits and pay more money for those audits in the future.
Beach, who stepped into his position from the Office of Management and Budget in July, blamed software glitches for the delay, as well as the fact that about a quarter of his staff left the county for private-sector jobs mid-year.
Clifton Gunderson has agreed to fill some of those staffing holes for $90 per person per hour. With an estimated 4,400 hours of work to be done, that could cost the county as much as $400,000.
The firm is already contracted to perform the county’s financial audit for about $315,000.
The council members at the meeting were concerned that the problems the department is having could arise again in the future.
“Is this the proverbial canary in the coal mine shaft going, ‘We’ve got a problem here’?” asked Councilman Roger Berliner, D-Bethesda.
Councilwoman Nancy Navarro, D-Eastern County, said the committee, which she heads, would revisit the issue in a future meeting.
