Audit raises concerns over Worth County Emergency Management bookkeeping

A Charles City accounting firm has given Worth County officials a report showing the books are a mess at the county emergency-management commission. At a commission meeting in Northwood Thursday night, county supervisor Ken Abrams, one member of the commission, looked over the report that showed little record-keeping for money spent by the former head of the agency. He says a credit-card bill was paid but there’s no record of what the credit card was used to buy that totaled over 100-dollars. Abrams noted the report shows spending with no receipts filed, and little detail on many purchases by the commission’s former director. He mentions to several small sums “not accounted for, from four-dollars to 42-dollars,” saying there’s no documentation of what was bought, just bills that submitted and paid. The accounting firm says what it did was not an audit, just a review of the agency’s funding and its spending for the fiscal year that ended in June. The review was requested by an interim director, after former director Marty Martin quit to run for sheriff. Martin says the review of his old books was a good idea. Martin says when he took the job, the office had been vacant for at least three months and the only training or guidelines he got was a brief talk with the former coordinator. Martin says he thinks it’s “great” that they’re putting guidelines together, saying it will improve the efficiency of the office. After he stepped down as director, the emergency-management commissioner for Mitchell County, Ray Huftalin, took on interim duties managing the Worth County commission as well, and requested the financial reports for both of them. Martin, who’s retired from the Mason City police department, served two years as head of the emergency-management commission and now is challenging Worth County sheriff David Gents in Tuesday’s election.