The beleaguered city of Gold Bar is in trouble with the Washington State Auditor’s Office again for lax financial procedures and spending more than it brought in for three of the past four years. The city of 2,000 has only enough money in its emergency fund to cover 1.5 days of general-fund expenditures, and it owes its own water utility $80,000.
In its third straight negative annual audit, the auditor criticized the city for loose financial policies. According to the audit, the city’s travel policy doesn’t require receipts, it keeps its city credit cards in an unlocked safe “where all employees have access and can self-check-out by use of a logbook.” And city fuel cards are in envelopes with the PIN written on the outside. The city’s petty cash drawer is unlocked and, at the time of the audit, short $145.
There is no purchase-order process, and expenditures by the council are approved by a panel of one council member and two city residents who don’t consider the city’s current policies, the auditor wrote.
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