Gibson County receives less than favorable audit after 2023 fiscal year
GIBSON COUNTY, Tenn. – An annual audit of Gibson County for the 2023 fiscal year was completed by the Tennessee Comptroller’s Office.
In their news release, the Comptroller’s Office stated their audit showcased six findings that, “Outline deficiencies, weaknesses, and areas of noncompliance within the office of the county mayor, which employs the county finance director.”
According to the audit, one of these six deficiencies was a failure to meet federal reporting requirements for grant money received during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Gibson County received about $109,000 in grant money and it was required to report on that grant money but it never did. So the federal government reached out to Gibson County officials, let them know that they haven’t received a report, and gave them some certain time to submit a report. Gibson County still failed to submit that reporting documentation,” said John Dunn, the Director of Communications for the Comptroller’s Office.
The failure to submit a report resulted in more than $109,000 being withheld from future proceeds the county could receive.
The audit also states that Gibson County failed to deposit five checks on time and even now a total of three checks totaling $11,925 is still missing.
“That’s money, over $11,000 that was paid to the county, that could be used for county expenditures, but have not been deposited to the bank because essentially it looks like the checks were lost,” Dunn said.
Along with failures to submit federal grant reports and lost checks, the audit shows Gibson County also has a cash overdraft of $107,965.
“This is just about pretty poor accounting. Essentially, checks were written against a fund account that the county trustee holds, but there wasn’t enough money in that fund account to cover the checks,”
In the news release, Comptroller Jason Mumpower says that only two years ago, Gibson County had a clean audit without any findings and said, “It’s concerning to see the county’s financial management heading in the wrong direction.”
“So when you see a county go from zero findings to six findings in just two years, it usually indicates some sort of financial management weakness within the county. And that appears to be the case in Gibson County,” Dunn said.
We reached out to Gibson County Mayor Nelson Cunningham for a comment on the audit and are awaiting a response.
To see the full audit for yourself, click here.
Find more news out of Gibson County here.
