JONESVILLE — Jonesville’s government will meet later this week to discuss plans to rectify a bookkeeping situation so unclear an independent auditor could not issue an opinion on the financial operations of the town.

The Louisiana Legislative Auditor’s Office released a report this week in which the contract auditor wrote the firm could not obtain sufficient information for the opinion regarding the business-type activities and the town’s proprietary fund.

“We are going to have to develop an action plan and submit it to the legislative auditor to address their points of interest and points of concern,” Jonesville Mayor Hiram Evans said. “Thursday or Friday we are going to have a meeting where we will be putting before the council our steps to correct the problems. We are going to try to get a (certified public accountant) to work with us as a financial advisor to deal with those issues.”

Business-type operations are defined as those that charge fees for customers — including electricity, water, gas and sewer — as well as interest payments on long-term debt.

In Jonesville’s case, one fund is used to account for electric, water, gas and sewer operations.

A news release from the LLA reported “the Town’s internal controls for its business-type activities and proprietary fund were either ineffective or were not operating as designed, and that bank accounts and subsidiary ledgers were not being reconciled to the general ledgers.”

Among the concerns the auditor presented were that:

-The utility accounts receivable was not being reconciled to the general ledger

-Some transactions within the utility billing system were not posted to the general ledger

-Water and utility system transactions were not included in financial statements for the proprietary fund

-Transactions related to some debt service were not recorded in the general ledger

-The town could not provide a customer meter deposit report that was reconciled to the general ledger.

-The town was also out of compliance with the state for missing the six-month due date for audits. The audit was due Dec. 31.

This audit is for the 2015 fiscal year, which ended June 30, 2015. It follows an investigative audit released in January, where auditors said that between December 2014 and September 2015, $93,841 in utility payments were received and recorded but not deposited in the town’s bank account.

Evans said that while this audit was separate from the January audit, the issues revealed in the January report contributed to some of the problem highlighted in the current audit.

“We are getting to a point where we are turning the town around, financially, but we are going through some pains,” he said.