The Slatington Borough has received the results of its preliminary yearly audit as well as a bullet-point laundry list of fixes, corrections and reorganizations needed to bring the financial books into compliance.

"The issues in our audit are the cash reconciliation statements are not done regularly, the timeliness of transfers between the general fund to other funds and the taxes for social security, Medicaid were not accounted for in proper account," said borough council President David Schnaars.The 14 items listed by auditing company Campbell, Rappold & Yurasits LLP include small overlooks like time cards not being approved, proper description of duties for employee positions, to deposits not being delivered to proper accounts, including $97,400 worth of pension contributions that have been "sitting in unallocated account," according to the report."I can see how that would raise some eyebrows," Schnaars said. "We made those contributions but the allocations weren't sent down with them, all the money ended up there but the distribution list got lost."Schnaars said the company in charge of the pension management never contacted the borough to indicate there was a problem."We were never asked about it. The person responsible on their end had left the company. Now we will accredit it to the right people."State law requires that either the borough controller, elected auditors or appointed auditors file an annual audit and financial report, according to The Pennsylvania Department of the Auditor General to ensure that all state money is spent legally and properly."Tasks weren't accomplished for the past three years and now we've become aware of it and are working to become squared away. We hired outside account agencies to help us and we are getting things back on track," he said.The mislabeled funds and various other noncompliance issues in the initial audit dates back three years for the borough.One of the repeat issues in the preliminary audit was Water Sewer Garbage funds and Social Security and Medicare funds, were not deposited into the corresponding accounts.According to the report, funds were deposited into the general fund and were transferred late or not at all to proper accounts."We have money that comes in regularly and are supposed to be deposited into the account designated but it was being deposited in one lump sum instead of specific funds. We corrected it right away," he said."If they had a borough manager at the time that is who would be in charge of the noncompliance," said borough Manager Judith Danko."Since there was no manager it was up to the office manager and assistant secretary/treasurer with the council as the overseer," she said.When asked how the list grew so long over the past three years, Schnaars said he couldn't comment due to "personnel issues."Duane Dellecker was serving as office manager at the time, along with Karen Gill working as the assistant secretary-treasurer. Both employees have left employment in the borough office in the past year."There was no borough manager in the office, so every time we started working on the deficiencies, we ended up at a dead end," Schnaars said."When we hired Judith we knew there were deficiencies, but there were more than we realized. We are steadily working on it and expect that in September to be mostly cleared up or underway," he said.Schnaars said the borough recently hired a bookkeeper for the office."We've managed to get by on two people over the past 15 years in the office but we're considering adding another person part time," he said."Because of this our budget is questionable. We're holding off hiring someone until this is squared away," he said."A lot of stuff has happened to take care of specific items. We're going back three years to make sure everything is right," he said.A final report will be filed in early fall, according to the borough president."We've got a light at the end of the tunnel, we just need to get through the process. As we find stuff out and the auditors find stuff out, they'll let us know," he said."Our people are really working hard on this, we expected a list and knew there were some problems but we're surprised by the magnitude. We're very embarrassed but we're working hard to correct everything," he said.