After years of work, five departments in Luzerne County’s Judicial Services and Records Division have received audits with no findings from the State Auditor General’s Office, said Joan Hoggarth, who oversees the county division.
Every four years, the state agency performs a complete audit of all money due to the state and fully examines the accounting practices in these offices — Recorder of Deeds, Register of Wills, Clerk of Courts, Prothonotary and Sheriff, Hoggarth said.
The division head said she is “proud to announce we now have perfect audits in every office.”
“This was not an easy process, especially in the Prothonotary and Sheriff Offices due to past practices and large dollar amount accounts that were not reconciled,” she said.
Hoggarth recreated those accounts in a software program, manually entering deposits and checks from multiple accounts between the two offices dating back to 2015.
She then worked with department heads to initiate new accounting practices and balance “long outstanding issues,” with crucial continued compliance assistance from a fiscal supervisor who was added in 2019.
Strong accounting practices are essential to deter misappropriation of funds and detect errors, she said.
On average, the judicial services and records division collects and disburses $80 million annually, Hoggarth said.
To stay on track, all five offices consistently perform reports on undisbursed funds and investigate and correct discrepancies, she said.
“While no level of security procedures can fully guarantee fraud will not be attempted, I am proud to say that the Luzerne County Judicial Services and Records Division has implemented the best practices for the protection of taxpayer dollars,” Hoggarth said.
The deeds office received its first no-findings audit for the four-year period ending 2012, followed by the wills office in the period ending 2015. Clerk of courts achieved the milestone in the period ending 2017, and it occurred in 2019 for the prothonotary’s office.
All four have maintained their no-findings status since these dates, Hoggarth said.
The sheriff’s department was the most recent, obtaining a no-findings audit in the period ending February 2021, Hoggarth said.
This achievement was highlighted in county Manager Randy Robertson’s June division head report, which said the no-findings audit was the first for the sheriff’s department and the “result of a total change in accounting practices.”
Robertson held up the division’s audit results as positive news worthy of reporting.