MOSES LAKE — Moses Lake city officials are working to correct errors identified by the Washington State Auditor’s Office and catch up on delayed audits. Municipal Finance Director Madeline Prentice said city officials are working to have the delayed audits for 2023 and 2024 submitted by May. 

“Trying to get caught up on the audits is our first priority,” Prentice said. “We have actually brought in an outside accounting firm to assist us with that.” 

In addition to the delayed audits from 2022-24, the WSAO found other issues with the city’s financial management. No money had to be paid back, Prentice said, and nothing was missing with the exception of four items from the Moses Lake Police Department evidence room.  

City officials discovered in early 2024 that an employee allegedly used city money for personal expenses between April and November 2023. The alleged fraud was about $3,000. The employee, the city’s fleet manager, was fired and a report was filed with the Grant County Prosecutor following an investigation by the Moses Lake Police Department. The case is still pending.  

Auditors found that some expenses were allocated to the wrong funds, and some federal contract award guidelines were not followed. Some cost allocation procedures were not done in a timely manner. Procedures for keeping track of items in the MLPD’s evidence facility were flawed, the auditors said.  

Prentice said city officials are working to correct all the errors that were found and put the proper procedures in place to keep them from happening again. 

“When the auditors come and they say, ‘We found this during the audit,’ we'll generally take a look at it and say, ‘This is something we need to fix for our financial statements for this year end.’ The majority of those we do go back and fix in that year,” Prentice said. “In a number of the items, the auditors identified certain things, and in a lot of cases they said the city corrected this misstatement or this error.” 

Prentice said the department experienced substantial turnover for a few years, which contributed to the delays and errors.  

“(The city) replaced the entire accounting staff in a period of about two years,” she said. 

Prentice was hired in February 2022, following an interim finance director who was hired after the previous finance director left in August 2021.  

“We had a lot of turnover during that time,” she said. 

All of the staff worked in the private sector prior to being hired by the city, she said, and the rules for public finance are significantly different. 

“A majority of people, after getting their accounting degree, go to work for a private business,” Prentice said. “They learn how to do the accounting and the bookkeeping from a private business perspective, which is completely different from public. Making that shift from private to public is difficult – I worked at Grant County prior to coming to the city of Moses Lake, and I had to basically throw everything I knew from (the private sector) out and relearn how to do accounting from a public entity perspective.” 

In addition, the city was using the “generally accepted accounting principles” format, which was preferred by the state but is very complex, she said. 

“What they found was the small cities, especially, don’t have the staff with the expertise to be able to report on a GAAP basis because it is so complex,” she said. “Let me just put it in perspective. Agencies that report on a GAAP basis usually have an accounting team that is double or triple the size of the city of Moses Lake. We don’t have the luxury of having that many people.” 

The city is in the process of converting to a less complicated system that still meets state guidelines, which Prentice said they hope to have completed by the end of 2026 or early 2027. In addition, city finance personnel are receiving more training, she said. 

“The other thing I’m a big proponent of, and not only for the accounting staff but the utility billing staff, is cross-training. I’m a huge proponent of making sure that there is at least one, if not two, people that can back up someone if they’re out for an extended period of time,” she said.  

    Moses Lake Finance Director Madeline Prentice said the city is switching systems to make it easier to keep track of city finances.