A state audit of the 2017 financial statement of the Lyon County Sheriff’s Office showed a repeat finding from a prior audit in 2016, and internal control deficiencies and noncompliances over receipts. State Auditor Mark Harmon released the details of the audit Wednesday.
According to the release, the audit found the prior years’ disallowed expenditures have not been reimbursed to the drug fund, which is a repeat finding and was included in the prior year’s audit report. During the calendar year 2017, Lyon County Sheriff Kent Murphy failed to reimburse the drug fund disallowed expenditures of $787 from the sheriff’s 2013 audit and disallowed expenditures of $428 from the sheriff’s 2014 audit. The expenditures that were disallowed were items bearing the sheriff’s name.
The state auditor recommended the sheriff reimburse the drug fund account in the amount of $1,215 from his personal funds in order to comply with a state law that says the sheriff as a fee officer is not allowed to expend the public funds of his office on items that are primarily personal in nature.
The audit also found the Lyon County sheriff has internal control and deficiencies and noncompliances over receipts, which included receipts that were not batched daily, cash and checks not broken down on daily checkout sheets, and receipts not placed with the daily bank deposit as required by state law.
Sheriff Murphy’s response to the finding was his office currently makes daily deposits with the deposit ticket displaying a breakdown of cash and checks. He said they also retained a triplicate receipt book in which they write a receipt for each transaction. He noted they were unaware the daily receipts needed to be batched and attached to the daily check out sheets. Since this was brought to their attention at the close of the audit, Sheriff Murphy said they have corrected and implements the recommendation.
