Jul 17, 2019 2 min read

Ninety minutes after he released an audit revealing a staggering amount of money missing from the clerk of courts office, Washington County Controller Michael Namie was reporting on a second fiscal matter, this one dealing with accounts in 2018 at the county jail.

A member of the county prison board, Namie and his staff found the jail is not reconciling bank statements to the facility’s monthly balance in the inmate money account.

He reported it to the prison board as a recurring problem of “inadequate internal controls” because the lapse had been pointed out in a previous audit.

Namie said after the prison board meeting that those responsible at the jail were “not reconciling in a timely manner, if at all.

“We reconciled during our audit of the account for the jail, but they need to be doing that on their own.”

Failing to complete this task “increases the risk that errors or irregularities will go undetected, resulting in a loss of funds,” the controller noted.

Jail Warden Edward Strawn said the inmate account supervisor who was assigned this task in 2018 retired and has since been replaced.

The controller also found that problems related to reconciling the inmate welfare account he previously pointed out had not been corrected.

“In some months, it wasn’t done in a timely fashion, if at all,” Namie said.

As of Dec. 31, the county was due $10,379, but this administrative fee has since been remitted to the county’s general fund.

Strawn said he has been in touch with Keefe Supply Co., and “we are trying to see if it can be cleared or if we have to start all over again. At this point it looks like we can fix the mistakes and move on.”

Commission Vice Chairman Diana Irey Vaughan asked Namie during the prison board meeting, “There are no missing funds?”

“There is none,” Namie replied. And because three of the five previous findings were no longer an issue, he said of jail staff, “They’re headed in the right direction.”

As of June 30, the jail housed 362 prisoners.