During its meeting Monday, the Eau Claire County Finance and Budget Committee approved a resolution authorizing County Clerk Janet Loomis to submit a county election security subgrant agreement to the Wisconsin Elections Commission.
The subgrant totals $43,025 for six election security aspects. Loomis called it a good opportunity to make the county email system more secure from hacking and noted that residents often register to vote through email.
The most expensive security aspect, an internal network penetration, will cost $17,550. County IT Director Dave Hayden said the test will “take a look at what our vulnerabilities might be” and then make recommendations for improvements.
Supervisor Jerry Wilkie said the move should be “a win-win” and improve elections and overall county security.
Financial update
The committee also received information regarding the county’s finances through the first two quarters of 2020.
The county has brought in $41.8 million in revenue through the first six months of 2020, which is 37.65% of its budgeted $111 million in total revenue for the year. That is about $1.8 million behind last year’s pace, when the county collected 39.58% of its annual revenues through the first six months.
The county has totaled $41.4 million in expenditures through the first two quarters, 37.7% of the annual budget of $109.8 million. That number is down about $2.3 million compared to the first six months of 2019, when the county had spent 45.3% of its annual budget.
Some of that decrease “is directly associated with the pandemic and increased tighter management of expenditures,” County Finance Director Norb Kirk wrote in a fact sheet. “Factors contributing to this overall decrease are general spending reductions across most county departments in the general government program, and delayed project spending in the transportation program.”
In its general fund, the county has spent $15.56 million of its annual budget of $37.47 million, or 41.5%, and has received $13.53 million in revenue, or 36.1%. That results in a $2.03 million deficit in the general fund so far in 2020.
The county has spent $21.3 million on personnel through June 2020, which is 40.8% of the annual budget of $52.3 million. Through the same time last year, the county had spent 41.8% of its personnel budget.
Through May of this year, the county has collected $1.04 million in taxes from the vehicle registration fee, or wheel tax. If that monthly average continues for the rest of the year, the county will come in slightly above its budgeted annual revenue of $2.3 million. Through five months last year, the county had brought in $1.07 million from the wheel tax; it collected $2.45 million in 2019.
DHS audit finding
Kirk provided information that “at the 11th-and-a-half hour” of its 2019 audit, the accounting firm CliftonLarsonAllen found a reconciliation error totaling just over $200,000 in the Department of Human Services.
Kirk said CLA discovered that a reconciliation entry in DHS was not recorded as part of the 2019 budget. The entry will now be recorded in the 2020 budget, adding a six-figure deficit to DHS this year.
“DHS knows it’s other dollars it’ll have to mitigate in 2020,” Kirk said.
The oversight was just under the “materiality threshold” for DHS and will not affect the county’s overall audit rating, according to Kirk..
The next Finance and Budget Committee meeting is scheduled for Aug. 17.
©2020 the Leader-Telegram (Eau Claire, Wis.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
