BREC announced today it has received the cleanest rating an agency can obtain, from an audit of its 2019 financial statements.
The Louisiana Legislative Auditor has yet to finalize the audit, an unmodified opinion submitted by Postlethwaite & Netterville, but BREC says the agency continues to be in good financial health.
No material weaknesses were noted and there was just one error found in regard to inventory counts of resale items. The inventory counts were not conducted as often as mandated by BREC’s own policy. BREC is currently making changes to the policy and procedures to ensure controls are in place for the future, according to its news release.
The auditor’s management letter also noted one instance of misappropriation of public assets. In October 2019, maintenance staff reported the theft of equipment valued at $1,100 and a police report was filed. To date, no one has been arrested.
The audit recommends BREC create written policies and procedures for managing federal grants and preparing its annual schedule of expenditures of federal awards. BREC was recently approved for a federal grant to help build a $3.7 million bicycle and pedestrian trail connecting downtown to north Baton Rouge. The agency also received funding from FEMA to repair flood-damaged facilities.
BREC is currently installing a new resource planning system that matches the system used by the city-parish, BREC Superintendent Corey Wilson says in a prepared statement.
The Tyler MUNIS Enterprise Resource Planning System will increase transparency of BREC’s financial data, similar to the city-parish’s Open Checkbook website. Wilson expects the new system to be functional in January.
The agency manages an annual budget of close to $100 million, approximately 1,000 employees and hundreds of facilities and programs across the parish.
A summary of the preliminary draft was presented to BREC’s Finance Committee earlier this week, and it will be presented publicly at BREC’s regularly scheduled commission meeting at 5 p.m. this evening.
