Audit report: Boyceville ambulance service had $34,000 discrepancy in 2020
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By LeAnn R. Ralph
BOYCEVILLE — The Boyceville Community Ambulance District Board finally has the long-awaited audit report for 2020, and there is a $34,000 discrepancy for medical supplies.
Peter Score, chair of the Boyceville ambulance board and representative for the Town of Sheridan, handed out the audit reports from Clifton-Larson-Allen LLP at the board’s May 11 meeting.
At the time Wayne Dow took over as director of the service in April of 2021, the ambulance board had agreed that an audit of the ambulance service’s books should be conducted.
Since that time, Score and Valerie Windsor, clerk-treasurer for the ambulance district, have called Jonathan Sherwood of Clifton-Larson-Allen LP multiple times to find out about the status of the audit.
Windsor noted that she had given all of the information to Sherwood in July of 2021 and had been told the audit would take a month.
Score said he had invited Sherwood to attend the meeting to review the report but that Sherwood had not agreed to be at the meeting.
Revenue and expenses
The 2020 budget had budgeted revenue of $128,613, but the revenue for the year 2020 was short by a little over $40,000, Score said.
The wages for the two captains who took over as co-directors of the ambulance service were not budgeted and amounted to $27,800, he said.
By way of comparison, Dow, as ambulance service director, is paid $18,000 per year.
Department supplies also were over budget by $33,671, Score said.
The people who could answer questions as to why the department supplies were over budget by nearly $34,000 are the two captains, he said.
The two captains who served as co-directors were Shanna Knops and Andrew Kissh.
Trying to get to the bottom of why the supplies were so over budget two years later is difficult, Score said.
Members of the ambulance district board have a duty to review the invoices and check the receipts, and that can be done at any time, not just at meetings, he said.
The ambulance district board has a responsibility to their neighbors “to keep an eye on it,” Score said.
The auditor’s job is to make sure that all of the numbers add up, but what supplies were purchased is up to the board to review, he said.
In-house?
One board member asked if the ambulance board could do the audit rather an accounting firm.
The audit cost the Boyceville Community Ambulance District a little over $4,000.
An outside audit keeps everything “healthy” for Dow, for Windsor and for the board members, Score said.
A $34,000 discrepancy is big enough that it would be worth going through the receipts, said Ned Hahn, representative for the Town of Hay River, adding that perhaps there was a big-ticket item that had been purchased.
The ambulance district board could have an audit committee, suggested Sonya Zebro, representative for the Village of Boyceville.
Windsor, who started working as the clerk-treasurer in early 2020, said it was possible she had paid invoices and coded them under the wrong category.
An $800 battery for a piece of medical equipment, for example, should go under equipment repair but could have been put into medical supplies, Dow said.
Sherwood pointed out in his audit report the “limited segregation of duties,” but limited segregation of duties is always a problem for any small organization and is a problem for townships and villages as well, Score said.
It should be noted that audit reports for Dunn County, for example, also talk about limited segregation of duties.
Sherwood said that the ambulance district’s savings account activity should be detailed as well, Score said.
Because the Boyceville ambulance service has a limited segregation of duties, it is even more important for the ambulance board to review the invoices and expenses, he said.