Shelby County Dive Team Draft Audit?

Shelby Co. (ECWd) –

It appears that the Shelby County Dive Team Forensic Audit drafts have been provided to the county, however, at the time of publication we have been unable to get an actual confirmation response from either the current or past board chairman.

To date, the county has not placed the audit report on the agenda for any meetings and Chairman Mayhall has not responded to our inquiry about when it will be placed on the agenda.

Some very interesting findings are contained within these alleged drafts.  While we hope we are wrong, we suspect the establishment will attempt to justify some of these troubling findings rather than recognize there are some real issues which need to be corrected.

Some things that jumped out at us that many will pounce on include the information from a report by the former State’s Attorney.  While many of the items mentioned have nothing to do with the dive team, we believe they were included because they were part of a report given to the prior County Board Chairman Bobby Orman and included both dive team-related information and other county business.  The auditor was apparently provided that report. Within that report were concerns regarding financial reporting obligations an auditor can’t just ignore.  Rather than only providing those select items from the report it appears all the points from the report were provided.

Audit points of interest, although not all-inclusive:

• Benford Brown and Associates, LLC also reviewed a document titled “Summons in a Civil Matter” regarding the 2011 federal court case. The plaintiff on the document is listed as Shelby County Dive Rescue Team, a division of Shelby County, Illinois. – We wrote about these very documents in November of 2 023 in this article.
  
• Multiple years of spending beyond the budgeted limit.
• County Government is tax-exempt, however $481.71 was spent on taxes related to purchases.
• BB&A received no documentation for donations or earnings for the years 2021 and 2024
• BB&A asked for a list of the current Dive Team members as a part of our agreed-upon procedures. BB&A did not receive the requested information and that was one of the primary reasons for the delay in issuance of this report. (Both Chairman Mayhall and Dive Commander Austin Prichard have refused to provide the roster)
  
• Results from our application of agreed-upon procedures for September 1, 2021 through August 31, 2024 indicate that the accounting processes for the Shelby County Dive Team are not operating in compliance with the County’s policies and procedures.

Why would the auditor need a roster?  Look no further than two of the notations in the table report included in one of the reports.

• BB&A inquired as to Nicholas Quick’s relation to the dive team. BB&A did not receive a response.
• BB&A noted the name Matthew was listed on the documentation. BB&A inquired as to Matthew’s relation to the dive team. BB&A did not receive a response.

The agreed-upon procedures identified the following:

• Failure to Inventory Equipment: Equipment purchased with County funds has not been put into inventory nor has the inventory been observed and audited.
• Potential Commingling of Funds: There is a potential for commingling of personal and County funds, particularly related to the trade-in of a truck for a County truck.
• Overspending and Credit Management Issues: Continued allowance for spending, opening lines of credit without oversight, and movement of County funds between institutions without proper control.
• Excessive Credit Cards: An excessive number of open and active credit cards, with potential misuse for personal expenses. 
• Cross Utilization of Funds: The Dive Team is allowed to use fire and rescue funds, with no access to the records from the fire and rescue funds. 
• Inconsistencies: Multiple issues with reporting, including active 911 subscriptions, discrepancies in training expense documentation, budget amount mismatches, and inconsistencies between reported and actual expenditures.

Again, we have been unable to confirm the two audit drafts are what was provided to the county as for some strange reason no one wants to talk about these reports. Could it be because Dive Team Commander Austin Prichard is also a member of the County Board’s Audit Committee?

We would hope that the board places these drafts on the agenda and the information contained in the audits is discussed so the public is made aware of the full story.

A copy of the two drafts can be downloaded at the links here and here, or viewed below.