NEWS

Auditor: Police Jury audit is ‘excellent’

Kaleb Causey
kcausey@thenewsstar.com

It was all good news for the Ouachita Parish Police Jury Monday night as external auditor David Soignier briefed the jurors on the 2013-2014 audit.

“Excellent. Very good,” Soignier said when asked to sum up the audit. “(Treasurer Brad Cammack’s) office does a very good job.”

The audit showed the Police Jury had $78,644,535 in revenue and $74,740,303 in expenses. The jury also reported $4,470,835 in other financing sources, which brought their budget surplus to $8,375,067.

Cammack said all of the praise should go to the way the Police Jury operates.

“The Police Jury sets the tone at the top,” he said. “They are very involved with departmental budgeting. We have a great, professional group of department heads that are great at budgeting. The Police Jury is very good at overseeing that management.”

He said the process makes his job a whole lot easier.

“Their goals are to make sure we’re managing wisely so we don’t have unplanned deficits,” he said. “This proves they’re being successful at it.”

Walt Caldwell, juror and chair of the finance committee, said he was pleased with the results.

“It was another good year with another clean audit,” he said. “It shows that this body is responsible and doing what they’re supposed to.”

There was one finding in the audit. The jury was cited for not correctly recording the budgetary impact of the Calhoun Research Station. The property, which is valued at roughly $3.8 million, came back to the Police Jury from Louisiana State University after it was no longer being used for its intended purpose.

The finding was minor, Soignier said.

“If you’ve got to have a finding, this is the least severe finding you could have,” he said.

Caldwell said the mistake was an accident.

“The only finding was that we failed to report the equivalent value of the Calhoun Research Station. Nobody ever thought about that,” he said. “The fact that governmental entities report assets is a fairly new concept.”

The next Police Jury meeting is scheduled for August 17.

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