State audit of Lorain County Port Authority details accounting errors

ELYRIA — A former secretary with the Lorain County Port Authority has been ordered to repay $1,180 she was paid after her resignation for 80 hours of work she did not actually perform, a state audit revealed. The finding was one of several announced in an audit report of the Port Authority's accounts and records for 2019 detailed by State Auditor Keith Faber's office this week. These included mathematical errors in accounting that the Auditor's Office said "decreases the reliability of financial data." According to an audit finding released Thursday, Faber's staff found that former secretary Jacqueline Lewkyckyj "did not have employee healthcare insurance deductions made from her biweekly pays, totaling $1,412" during 2019. She had signed up for and received employee health care benefits at the time she was hired, according to the audit. Port Authority Director Pat Metzger signed Lewkyckyj's time sheet, and was jointly found liable for the improper payments. The county told auditors that it entered into an agreement with the accounting firm of Varney & Fink to provide payroll services as of June 2019 under which that company now enters employee data to ensure accuracy. "This corrective action provides a higher level of error control and a cross check for complete and accurate management of payroll related deductions," the county wrote in response. Other mathematical errors also were discovered by auditors, according to Faber's office. In addition, the county Port Authority also improperly calculated deferred pension expenses related to Ohio Public Employee Retirement System. The county worked with its accounting firm "to improve the reliability of calculations and ensure the correct contribution levels to OPERS" and Other Post-Employment Benefits, or OPEB, expenses, resulting in understating deferred payments by nearly $300,000 and overstating pension expenses by $373,000. The Port Authority "will work closely" with its accounting firm "to improve the reliability of calculations and ensure the correct contribution levels to OPERS and OPEB systems," the county told auditors in its official response. The Port Authority likewise overstated the amount of money available in a restricted fund by $151,000, when that money should have been in an unrestricted fund for economic development. Another $166,759 in assets on the Port Authority's books that was being held for resale was no longer owned by the Port Authority, auditors found, and a property transferred from the Lorain County Land Reutilization Corporation in 2017 was not recorded in the Port Authority's books as of Dec. 31, 2017.