Grand County’s Audit Committee on Dec. 5 recommended that the internal audit plan for 2026 focus on restricted funds across county programs and component units.

Julian, the county’s internal auditor, proposed treating restricted funds as a unified, high-risk topic and recommended auditing the transient rental tax (TRT/TRCC), airport restricted funds and road-related restricted funds to assess controls and classification across different restriction types. "With that, the concerns and things I heard back were related to restricted funds," Julian said, noting this approach would let auditors look for process and control improvements across functions.

Commissioners and staff also discussed concerns about the make-up of the county's fund balance. Several members said revenues are well-tracked on receipt but that the fund balance is a jumble of monies subject to different statutory restrictions enacted at different times, making it difficult to determine which funds are available for which purposes under current law. One participant described the problem as statutory changes creating multiple restrictions layered into a single reserve account.

Given clerk-auditor staffing constraints, the committee agreed not to overburden the clerk’s office; rather, Julian requested remote access to the county financial system so internal auditors can independently pull data. Julian said IT is setting up a dedicated machine in the clerk’s office for remote access, which would reduce the burden on clerk staff.

Julian also recommended two programmatic improvements: a repeatable annual risk assessment with standard metrics to inform future audit prioritization, and a fraud hotline (telephone/email or vendor-provided) to receive reports and protect anonymity. Committee members recalled a prior audit recommendation on a hotline from 2018 and discussed practical options for vendor or in-house solutions and roles for handling and investigating reports.

The committee agreed to include the restricted-funds review and planning for remote access and fraud-reporting mechanisms in the 2026 internal-audit workplan and to revisit clerk-resource implications when finalizing the scope.