Parish Council to seek bids on annual audit

The St. Landry Parish Council voted to ask for bids from accounting firms to conduct its next annual audit.
The audit has been conducted by the Eunice office of Darnall, Sikes, Gardes & Frederick for 18 years.
The Council recently approved hiring Going, Sebastien, Fisher & LeBouef, an Opelousas audit firm, to cleanup parish’s government day-to-day bookkeeping.
Steve Moosa, of Darnall, Sikes, Gardes & Frederick, reported in July the parish government’s annual audit, which had 15 findings.
After Wednesday’s meeting, Harold Taylor, Parish Council chairman, said the 2015 audit found $3,200 was taken from a safe at the animal shelter and the theft was not reported to the proper authorities.
The audit also found credit cards were not paid in a timely fashion, transactions were miscoded and controls were not in place to safeguard transactions.
Councilman Wayne Ardoin said the Council was spending $10,000 to hire Going, Sebastien, Fisher & LeBouef to review the previous audit’s findings.
Ardoin said Darnall, Sikes, Gardes & Frederick was hired at a cost of $18,000, but ended up being paid $94,500.
Moosa said his firm’s additional costs were incurred in straightening out parish government’s bookkeeping errors, which were among the 15 findings of the 2015 audit.
Parish President Bill Fontenot said an auditing firm is usually hired before the end of the year.
“The auditors are independent from our operation,” he said.
“The CPA firm that I employ as the president is to assist my accounting office, not to do any review of any audit work,” Fontenot said.
“The accounting service works for the parish under my supervision and the auditor does not. They are two separate functions,” he said.
Taylor said there is an agreement that whatever Going, Sebastien, Fisher & LeBouef recommends he and the two Council committee chairman, Coby Clavier and Jerry Red, would be informed.
But Fontenot said that is not the case.
“What is correct is that they work with me to make sure that I have a clear budget process that I can report to you,” Fontenot said.
Taylor replied, “We have a communication problem here.”
Fontenot then stated he is willing to share the information with everyone.
After the meeting, Taylor said, the Council’s duties in the home rule charter are to adopt a budget and review the budget and to hire the auditor.
“That is our two functions,” he said.
In other Council action, the state Department of Transportation and Development will be asked to clean ditches along state highways. Timothy LeJeune and Jimmie Edwards voted against sending the letter.