No news was good news for Buchanan County government Friday.

A St. Louis auditor who spent a week combing through county financial records said he was happy to report no findings during an exit interview with commissioners and other officeholders.

“We don’t have any major news,” said Charles Buchanan, CPA.

Mr. Buchanan still is waiting on confirmations from various area banks before he can file his final report, which should take about six weeks.

“We think you’re going to get a clean opinion, barring anything major coming back from the confirmations,” he said.

He and his staff since Monday have conducted an annual state-mandated independent audit, and so far haven’t found any fault in the county’s books, he told commissioners. That hasn’t been the case since 2006, when the outside audits became more stringent per state law.

The same St. Louis firm handed back imperfect, or “qualified,” audits to the county for not officially documenting inter-fund transfers in 2007 and 2008. That was the county’s only official blemish in 2008.

County Commission staff now write up a court order for every account transfer, which apparently satisfied the auditors. “That’s going to allow us to remove the qualification,” he said.

However, he stressed the county still needs to purchase new accounting software, a recommendation he also made in 2008. County Auditor Nancy Nash said new systems have proved more expensive than the $50,000 commissioners budgeted for it this year, so she hasn’t been able to purchase one.

While the lack of a system doesn’t count against the county in the audit, it cost an additional $3,000 for the extra time involved. Ms. Nash expects a similar fee this year on top of the $16,500 base cost.

“It’s not very reliable at all,” Mr. Buchanan said. “That thing is very weak. I fear that something could fall through the cracks.”

However, he complimented the county auditor’s office. Of the more than 250 invoices his staff manually pulled, every one checked out. “I feel really good about the county’s internal controls,” he said.

The statement didn’t bypass Ms. Nash’s ears. She later told the News-Press, “Do you know what that means to an auditor?”

Treasurer John Nash questioned if the sheriff’s department had been able to clean up and reduce its amount of accrued comp and vacation time. “In past audits, that was always a liability,” Mr. Nash said.

Mr. Buchanan replied that the reduction had been “significant” — by $341,000 from 2008.

Ms. Nash explained that obtaining a perfect, or unqualified, audit would help the county improve its bond rating.

“With an unqualified audit, we’d hopefully get the lowest rate we could,” she said.

Alyson E. Raletz can be reached

at alysonraletz@npgco.com.