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Missed rule change leads to audit finding for Potato Commission

CHERYL SCHWEIZER | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 8 years, 10 months AGO
by CHERYL SCHWEIZERStaff Writer
Senior Reporter Cheryl Schweizer is a journalist with more than 30 years of experience serving small communities in the Pacific Northwest. She began her post-high-school education at Treasure Valley Community College and enerned her journalism degree at Oregon State University. After working for multiple publications, she has settled down at the Columbia Basin Herald and has been a staple of the newsroom for more than a decade. Schweizer’s dedication to her communities and profession has earned her the nickname “The Baroness of Bylines.” She covers a variety of beats including health, business and various municipalities. | September 10, 2016 6:00 AM

MOSES LAKE — The Washington Potato Commission didn’t know about new guidelines for reporting pension funds, and as a result made mistakes on its pension fund reporting, according to an audit report from the Washington State Auditor’s Office.

The audit finding was part of the commission’s 2015 audit.

The auditors said the commission “relied upon a CPA (certified public accountant) to understand and apply new reporting factors, as well as prepare the financial statement.” Rules that changed the way pensions were reported came into effect before 2015, the auditors said, but neither the commission’s accounting firm or the commissioners were aware of that.

The commission staff, in their reply to the auditors, said the reporting rules covered the way the commission reported pension funds. “The commission did not know it was required to report the commission’s share of the state of Washington’s pension liability as part of its own financial reporting.”

Because the commission didn’t include the pension funds in its year-end reports, its statements were incorrect in its accounting of how much money was in the pension system. The commission staff corrected the mistake once they became aware of it, the audit report said.

The audit report said the commission didn’t give adequate training to the staff, to ensure they knew the reporting requirements existed.

“Once the (auditor’s office) identified this reporting deficiency, the commission moved quickly to determine its share of the state’s pension liability and amended its financial report.” To ensure the mistake doesn’t happen again, “management will implement a new communications plan with its contracted CPA firm to review any new reporting requirement that may or may not pertain to the commission to avoid these types of reporting deficiencies.”

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at education@columbiabasinherald.com

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