Where Are the Audits?

On thing I hear often, particularly when talking about budgets, or in this case, the $16.4 million Governor DeSantis presented to Citrus County last week for a sewer upgrade in Crystal River is something along the lines of "I hope they use the money for what it is supposed to be used for".

This got me thinking. Do people know that the county is audited by a 3rd party every single year and every single dollar is accounted for?

If the money is earmarked for a special project like the sewer grant, that money has to be used for that reason. They cannot say "You know what, let's use it towards roads" or whatever other project they desire. It has to be used for the sewer system it was given for.

Now, what may happen is the county may have budgeted money to address that system. With the grant money, they no longer need to budget those original dollars towards that project. That will free up that money to be used elsewhere, depending on the source of the funds. I do not know if that is the case here as I am not sure if this projected was funded by the county or not. Just explaining how budget transfers would work, IF funds were available to transfer out.

For instance, if the funds came from the stormwater MSBU, they would have to be used for something that qualifies. If the funds came from the General Fund, there is far more flexibility in the use of the funds.

Make sense?

The county is audited every single year. The county passes its audit every single year. What does this mean? This means that commissioners are not taking tax dollars or grant funds and putting them in their pocket, as I often hear. If that were happening, it would be shown in the audit, but its not.

I think it is safe to say we can put that rumor to bed. They are not pocketing your tax dollars, other than their salaries... which are determined and set by the state and NOT by them.

To that point, commissioners are currently paid roughly $78,216 per year. It has gone up roughly 3% a year. They also get a benefits package that mirrors the county employees.

They can opt into a healthcare plan. I believe this is free if they are insuring themselves. For family plans, they pay $732.12 per month. The county contribution for that is $581.88 per month.

They can opt into Dental plans ($37.30 per month) and additional life insurance ($90 per month). Neither of which have a county contribution.

The county pays $22.82 per month for disability coverage.

The biggest expense for the county, other than the salary, is the Florida Retirement System contribution. If the commissioner chooses the pension plan, the county contribution is 58.6% of the total salary. If the commissioner chooses the investment plan, the county contribution is 13.34%. The commissioner pays 3% regardless of the plan.

If a commissioner chooses the pension plan, the county will contribute $42.690 per year. If the commissioner chooses the investment plan, the county contribution is $10,434 per year.

OK back to county audits.

The audits that the county has done every year are done by independent Certified Public Accountants from Forvis Mazars, L.L.P. This is NOT done by the county employees. The audit is handled by the Clerk of Courts and done through their office.

Here is the link to the audit reports. Scroll to the bottom and you will see them listed.

Take some time to browse through those audit reports if you want to see where the money is going. Every single dollar is accounted for.

Now, this is just an audit that shows that the money is being spent where the county said it is being spent. They do not look at things like waste. That is what many people want the state's DOGE group to come in and do.

The audit will show $X amount being spent as the county said it is being spent, however, it does not say whether the county SHOULD be spending that money.

That is what many people want to see. We know that the money is being spent properly and as the county has said it is being spent, but does that money need to be spent to begin with? That is the question.

For instance, on October 31st, the county paid Survey Monkey $13,051.86 for its software. This money came from the "County Covid Grant Program". It appears we have been paying this monthly payment for a couple of years (various monthly amounts).

For those not familiar, this software does things like surveys, forms for data collection, event registrations, etc. I am not 100% sure the use within the county, but I assume things like employee surveys, HR uses and things of that nature.

The question that people will want answered is... Is there another option for this that saves money?

For instance, could IT create a software option that does similar? Is there an option to purchase software rather than paying monthly license fees? Is this something that is used often enough to justify the cost?

Those are things that the county audit will not have answers to and things that the DOGE audit may point out. That is what I think people want to see.

But let me caution everyone on this... Once DOGE comes to town and starts to point out potential waste items like Survey Monkey.... just because they list it as "waste" does not mean that it is waste. There is likely a good reason why the county has that subscription. But.. maybe not.

DOGE can certainly point things like that out, but we also need to give the county a chance to explain why they use those things or why they had those expenses.

It will be interesting to see what that report says, whenever DOGE gets to Citrus County. We submitted the paperwork back in August, so now it is a waiting game. The county does not have a timeline as far as I know.

But it is safe to say, that the county is audited and is spending money as it says. It remains to be seen if people will view that as waste or not.