City of Winnfield

Employees of the Winn Parish City of Winnfield misused the city’s credit cards to purchase an estimated $10,000 in fuel for their personal use, according to an audit report released Monday by Legislative Auditor Daryl Purpera’s office.

The exact amount of the misappropriation, when the incidents occurred and the number of employees involved was not given in the report, done for the state auditor by the Johnson, Thomas and Cunningham certified public accounting firm of Natchitoches.

“However, we have estimated the misappropriation to be at least $10,000,” auditors said. The report said that employees involved admitted to the misappropriation but were not fired.

An amount of $240 each is being withheld from the paychecks of those who admitted using the city’s fuel cards improperly, according to the report.

“The internal control system over fuel cards was not effective in safeguarding the city of Winnfield against misappropriation of funds,” the audit report said. “Errors or irregularities with internal control procedures for fuel card usage could result in more than a remote possibility that the fuel card usage could be misappropriated and not be detected.”

City officials said they are taking steps to resolve the problems.

According to the report, Winnfield officials said instead of leaving the fuel cards in the city vehicles, they are now stored in a locked box, and new cards and PIN numbers have been assigned to departments and not individual vehicles.

The report also said only “designated employees” will be allowed to purchase fuel for their departments and that individuals must sign for their department card, fill out a form for the purchase, and submit the purchase ticket.

“If limits are reached at the pump and attempts are made to exceed (the) limit, access for additional fuel is denied at the pump,” according to the city’s response to the report.