Report of State Auditor 1998

• Year: 1998
• Title: Report of the State Auditor
• CWCB Section: Finance
• Description: Colorado Water Conservation Board Construction Fund Loan Program Department of Natural Resources Performance Audit 1998
• Publications - Doc Type: Tech Report

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46 Construction Fund Loan Program Performance Audit-September 1998
interest totaling almost $34,000, and two borrowers were overcharged interest of
about$900.
Second,we found two instances where the Board sent information to a borrower that
was inaccurate. In one case the Board sent a borrower a bill with the wrong payment
amount. This resulted in the Board's receiving payments over a six-year period that
were short a total of approximately $1,100. In another instance a borrower had
skipped a payment but was sent an amortization schedule that showed the payment
for $8,742 had been made. This statement also included another error that when I
combined with the former problem,may have led the borrower to conclude that the
loan would be paid off five years before the actual full repayment date.
Staff may be sending bills at the wrong time because the spreadsheet they use to
monitor billing dates contains inaccurate and incomplete information. Inaccurate
billing information may be the result of the absence of a supervisory review of billing
statements prior to their being sent. In addition, loan files have not been reviewed
since 1993. Reviewing loan files periodically to ensure that billing, payment, and
other information is accurate and up to date may help prevent the problems we
observed.
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Recommendation No. 14:
The Water Conservation Board should ensure that its borrowers receive bills that are
timely and that contain accurate information. This should include a management
review of the information contained in the billing statements and a periodic review
of all loan files to identify and correct information that is inaccurate or out of date.
Water Conservation Board Response:
Agree. Billing information for all existing projects will be reviewed,verified, I
and incorporated into the loan project database by June 30, 1999.
Since about 1985, loan payment reminder letters have been prepared using I
a word processor and monthly merge lists, not a database.
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Follow-Up on Late Payments Is Needed
We reviewed the payment histories associated with the Board's loans for the period
Fiscal Year 1995 to 1998 to determine whether borrowers were making their annual
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