By Wane A. Hailes
The Courier
During the Columbus City Council meeting on December 5, 2023, the city’s internal auditor, Donna McGinnis a certified CPA, shared her findings. As a result of the of the audit she conducted, McGinnis reported that a backlog in revenue collections since 2019 came to 45.1 million.
In a response to McGinnis’s audit, Finance Director Angelica Alexander told the city council that her numbers were incorrect. During Alexanders’ response, her presentation was cut off by the council and she was unable to share the inaccuracies in the internal auditor’s findings.
During the December 12, 2023, Columbus City Council meeting Deputy City Manager Pam Hodge refuted the findings of internal auditor McGinnis that $45.1 million was missing, lost, or unaccounted for.
“Every dollar of the $45.1 million can be documented with a deposit, a bank statement, with a cash receipt, and with a canceled check,” Hodge told the council in no uncertain terms.
Hodge went on to itemize every false statement by the Certified CPA.
-The internal Auditor has claimed that the journal entries which reclassifies funds from the G/L Lockbox account to revenue is Missing Money”. This is false. The funds in the G/L Lockbox account are funds already deposited in the Bank
Currently there are approximately 500 returns that are still pending to be processed. The total is an estimated $2.5million. Those funds have already been deposited.
With all of the inaccuracies in the Audit conducted by Donna McGinnis the question should be asked, did she commit accounting fraud?
According to an article by Steven Nickolas in Investopedia:
Accounting fraud is the intentional manipulation or misrepresentation of financial data in the accounting records or financial statements of an organization. In order to give stakeholders, investors, or regulators a false and misleading impression of the company’s financial health, it entails dishonest practices to misrepresent revenue, expenses, assets, or liabilities. Accounting fraud is prohibited, and those who engage in it risk facing harsh legal repercussions as well as financial fines.
Unethical accounting is misleading or inaccurate reporting. including inaauracy, incompleteness and questionable re categorisation. Lack of transparency in accounting decisions. Breaches of confidentiality.
It has been reported that McGinnis will be conducting audits of the Human Resource Department, The City Managers office and the Workforce Investment Acts department. Why should the Black community be concerned? Because each of these departments are headed by Black employees. Hollowell, Isaiah Hugley and Howard Pendleton. Is there a pattern developing?