Independent team praises City’s book-keeping

COVINGTON, Ky. – Saying it’s “the best you can get,” an independent team of auditors has given the City of Covington a clean bill of health for its accounting practices and financial record-keeping.

It also said the City has fixed lingering issues that have plagued audits since 1996.

“We issued an unmodified, clean opinion for both the financial statements and the major federal programs,” said Morgan Ryle, Assurance Manager at Barnes Dennig certified public accountants. “That’s the best you can get, so great work to the team for that.”

Mayor Joe Meyer praised the Finance Department led by Steve Webb for the assessment.

“This is actually a very significant audit presentation in Covington’s recent history,” the Mayor said. “No weaknesses, no deficiencies. In other words, for the first time in more than 20 years, our books were in professionally acceptable condition, and that is an accomplishment that the Finance Department should take great pride in, and it sets a new threshold of expectation that henceforth and hereafter, there should be no more audits with material weaknesses or significant deficiencies. It is really a very positive accomplishment and a recognition of the improvement in the quality of the City’s financial record-keeping.”

Webb said a clean audit was a goal he’d set when he came to the City in late August 2022. Last year’s audit, which examined the fiscal year ending June 30, 2022, had four findings that rose to what auditors call “significant deficiencies.”

To eliminate those, Finance further separated duties of its staff to build in protection against any opportunity for wrong-doing, strengthened ARPA reporting processes, fixed weaknesses in the handling of credit card purchases, and tightened up handling of every transaction, to the point where auditors found none that had to be adjusted.

“It was one of the things I wanted to fix, and I’m proud that in my first full year we were able to do that,” said Webb, who recently was chosen as Kentucky Government Finance Officers Association “Finance Officer of the Year” for 2023 and was then elected president of the organization. “My team and I made a lot of changes to procedures and processes.”

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The audit and its findings are included in Covington’s Annual Comprehensive Financial Report for the Fiscal Year ending June 30, 2023.

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