County finance staff is cleaning up the past, according to the county’s 2015-16 audit.

Jeffrey Best, of Carr, Riggs and Ingram LLC, presented a draft of the audit to commissioners at the regular meeting Dec. 12. The three findings in 2015-16 were a marked improvement over the 13 found in the 2014-15 audit, according to Best.

“What I see here is a lot of hard work,” Best said of the county finance department.

The three findings in the 2015-16 audit were carry over from past years’ practices: four payments made to the hazard mitigation and revaluation funds that were made for one year but recorded in the following year when they were received; an understatement of $416,583 of fund balance revenue incorrectly recorded in 2014-15; and an understatement of $145,096 in unbilled revenues for the water department in 2014-15.

“They were both understatements, so it means the county found additional money. … It’s better that it was an understatement than an overstatement.” said county Manager Brian Alligood. “It is fixing things that were found not to have been done correctly in the past — in fixing them, it becomes a finding on the audit. Those things are straight now.”

Alligood said the county finance staff, under the leadership of Beaufort County’s new Chief Finance Officer Anita Radcliffe, has worked diligently to clear up the issues found during the previous audit — issues that addressed incorrect processes and overlap of duties that could be potentially exploited. At the time, then-county CFO Mark Newsome attributed those concerns to a lack of staff and the turnover the finance department has seen in recent years.

“I’m not satisfied because it’s not perfect,” Radcliffe told commissioners during the presentation. “But to go down from 13 findings to three?”

Commissioner Hood Richardson questioned Best as to why the county’s expected tax revenue collected didn’t match what was budgeted in 2015-16, and requested an explanation of the 2015-16 revenue from county staff.

“It’s going to be difficult for us to explain a budget that we didn’t build,” Alligood said, referring again to the turnover in county staff.

Radcliffe told commissioners it was a PotashCorp-Aurora property tax reduction of more than $1 million that caused the disparity between numbers.

Alligood said he was pleased with the difference between the 2014-15 and 2015-16 audits.

“I’m very proud of our financial staff. They have done an outstanding job of cleaning up and fixing and getting the house in order,” Alligood said. “Our goal is that there are no findings next year in the audit. That’s where we want to be. But if we find things, we will fix them as we move forward.”