Missed rule change leads to audit finding for Potato Commission

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