The Timberland Regional Library Board of Trustees on Wednesday voted to tweak its building fund policy following an accountability audit that was carried out by the state Auditor's Office.
But the more serious issues raised by the audit were not discussed during the meeting and there was no public comment about it. Wednesday's meeting was the first regular board meeting since The Olympian published a story about the audit in early April.
The audit examined the multi-county library district that serves Southwest Washington, including Thurston County, from Jan. 1, 2019 to Dec. 31, 2021.
The library district received a clean financial audit over the period, but the accountability audit produced a management letter to the board in February that outlined some recommendations, including that the library follow its own policy when spending money on city-owned buildings.
Under its policy, the host cities are responsible for building upkeep, and TRL is not to spend more than $10,000, but on two occasions, according to the audit, the spending exceeded that total.
TRL Executive Director Cheryl Heywood provided another example during Wednesday's meeting, saying the board approved spending $120,000 on a library building in Raymond in 2020, but if the district hadn't done that, the library would have closed, she said.
The board's action on Wednesday was fairly simple, essentially deleting the $10,000 figure from its policy. Future spending on buildings will be subject to the budgetary process and board approval, Heywood said.
But the Auditor's management letter didn't stop there. It also made recommendations regarding how to prevent the loss of funds and how best to approach the competitive bidding and prevailing wage process.
As to the loss of funds, the audit found: "The district did not have adequate internal controls over electronic payments to protect public funds. In 2020, the district made a vendor payment totaling $120,968 to a fraudulent bank account. The district did not take sufficient corrective action to improve its internal controls after the event, and it experienced a second loss in 2022 totaling $2,675, which was related to payroll."
Among the Auditor's Office recommendations: Strengthen controls to ensure verification procedures are required and followed to protect electronic funds transfers from internal and external threats.
In the case of public works procurement and prevailing wage, auditors "could not verify the district awarded contracts to the lowest responsible bidder."
Among the recommendations: Have procedures for securing quotes and awarding contracts using the small works roster method, which "requires the district to obtain quotes from at least five contractors, or three if the value of the contract is under $50,000."
Although the board did not discuss the audit at length, the district issued a news release before the meeting about it.
"None of the (management letter) recommendations provided were elevated to an audit finding, which outlines significant concerns the state Auditor's Office has over a government or agency's control over public resources," it reads.
Still, there has been community concern about the audit and Timberland management in general. A former Timberland board member shared their thoughts in a letter to The Olympian this month.
"As a former TRL board member, I resigned in November 2020 because of the dysfunction of the board and management," Brenda Hirschi of Shelton wrote. "I didn't believe the board of trustees was acting as a governing board responsible for the financial stewardship of millions of taxpayer dollars. Too often what I saw were the trustees acting as cheerleaders for management."
