COLUMBIA, S.C. — News19 has been reporting for more than a week about the discrepancies with the town of Swansea's finances.
According to the town's hired auditor, recent financial discrepancies in the 2021 budget audit are because of bad bookkeeping.
Here's why bookkeeping matters:
It's an important job that's highly encouraged by the South Carolina Municipal Association.
"It is important that their income and their outgoing funds have to be recorded and reconciled," said Scott Slatton, the South Carolina Municipal Association director of advocacy and communications. "We recommend on a monthly basis and we also recommend that cities and towns, the staff, or whoever is in charge of their finances provide their councils with regular updates on the town's finances so that those elected officials can make informed decisions about how to carry out the things that they want to do as a city or a town."
It's something the town of Swansea has been struggling with according to their hired auditor who recently found $3,300,000 in assets unaccounted for.
According to the association, there are no state laws that require credentials for those who handle a town or city's finances, but this non-profit exists to support South Carolina towns and cities.
They are able to provide free financial training, answer questions, and offer courses.
Towns can reach out if they have any issues.
"Most of the time they do, they're aware of it, they call us and we can get in and start to work with them but we don't force our services on those cities and towns unless they ask for it," Slatton said.
In the case of Swansea, the municipal association said they can't confirm which Swansea council member reached out to them within the last month for financial help, but they did say that they've advised the town's financial consulting firm several times.
Local bookkeeping expert Elliot Hayes said these are the options when bookkeeping goes awry:
"You either have to go back and rebuild all of your books and figure out where you're at, i.e. pay for that, or you reconstruct it from invoices and billing and those types of things," said Hayes who is a local certified public accountant and bookkeeper.
News19 followed up with the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division on Friday to see if they're investigating these financial discrepancies in Swansea. A spokesperson said that the agency is not at this time.