The Washington County Board met last night, and the bulk of the meeting was taken up by a discussion of the yearly audit. According to auditor Gary Malawy of Krehbiel and Associates, the books kept by the county treasurer’s office were not in compliance. Malawy said that reconciling the books took substantial time and effort, and that the errors caused the cost of the audit to be much higher than normal. One-sided journal entries, where money was moved without showing a credit to one balance and a debit to the other, were the cause of most of the discrepancies in the audit. Treasurer Kelly Cameron indicated that she would be taking measures to address the problems, including taking some accounting classes, in order to prevent a recurrence of these issues. Despite the problems with the books, no money was found to be missing or misappropriated, so the county was given a clean audit. The audit also showed that the county had $24.377 million in assets, and all of that money was collateralized or insured by the FDIC. However, pension liabilities have increased substantially over the last year, and the General Fund showed a net loss of $546-thousand dollars since last year. The county has also received eight of the ten payments from Prairie State Generating, meaning the county must take in account that future loss of revenue. While the presentation of the audit took up most of last night’s meeting, several other items of business were handled. As a result of a feasibility study on fees collected by the county for some county business, three ordinances were approved to raise several sheriff’s office fees, as well as county clerk/recorder fees and court security fees. Board Vice Chairman Gary Suedmeyer said that the new fees were higher, but most had not been raised in years and the new fees were in line with fees charged in surrounding counties. The Board approved Mary Ann Klein’s request to rezone 3.7 acres from agricultural to Rural 1 to allow for the building of a home. Appointments of election judges were approved, as was the appointment of Rick Lake to the Lively Grove Cemetery Committee. The Board also approved a time change for the August 8 meeting from the normal time of 7 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. in order to take the official county board photograph. The Washington County Board heard reports from several county offices during the regular meeting held last night. County Engineer Mitch Burdick gave updates on highway projects, reporting that the County Highway 21 resurfacing project between State Route 15 and Oakdale began on July 5 and will run through August. He also said that the bridge work on Peachtree Road is complete and is on hold for a dry window for the road work, but it should be done by the end of July. He also informed the board that a bridge inspection on Shannon Street in Richview resulted in the closing of the bridge, and that his office is in contact with the village of Richview in discussions about options for reopening the bridge. Sheriff Danny Bradac reported that the county jail currently has ten county and two federal inmates. Supervisor of Assessments Sharon Mewes indicated that the feedback on the new plat books has been mostly positive, and that the state has tentatively set the county multiplier at 0.9748. A date was also set for the Planning Commission’s hearing on the Washington County Comprehensive Plan for August 4. That plan will be available for review on several websites for 30 days prior to a vote on its approval to allow for public review and comments.