After the figures were totaled, the annual audit by Plant and Moran ended up costing Independence Township an additional $30,388.
‘I regret this cost. It is distressing as heck,? Trustee Dan Travis said. ‘This has not been budgeted for and it is high. This is higher than I would have anticipated.?
The township was billed for an additional 200 hours because Plant and Moran had to log bank reconciliations and quarterly adjustments that were normally handled by the Independence Township Finance Director.
‘Two hundred hours is a lot of hours. That is five weeks of work,? Trustee Dan Kelly said.
To prevent this problem from happening again, the finance director will now fill out a Monthly Closing Procedures Checklist as suggested by Plant and Moran. The board also approved the quarterly report coming back to the township board.
Treasurer Jim Wenger wanted to make sure everybody was clear that the township did not find anything wrong with the numbers.
‘I want to let the public know that we didn’t find any bad, scary things. It just took a while to get where we needed to be,? Wenger said.