GADSDEN COUNTY, Fla. (WCTV) – Gadsden County residents are learning this week about a cybersecurity issue at the sheriff’s office.
The issue significantly delayed the agency’s ability to turn in papers for the yearly county audit.
An auditor hired by the county, Ryan Tucker, shared his findings with commissioners on Monday.
In his report, he said GCSO experienced a “cybersecurity incident” in December that “compromised a portion of its information technology infrastructure.”
That incident led to the loss of financial reports for the annual audit.
Tucker said the sheriff turned in financial documents nine months past the county’s deadline.
Ultimately, the county was two months late in submitting its full audit to the state.
Tucker said the county should not lose any state funding for the late audit.
“We’re a couple months late here, from the June 30 deadline. But, it doesn’t sound like it’s going to cause a major issue,” Tucker said. “If you were to become many, many months late, even a year late, then you could be threatened with a reduction of state funding.”
As part of the audit, Tucker made recommendations to the sheriff’s office to ensure a delay like this doesn’t happen again.
“We did recommend that they move those systems into the cloud, in terms of their accounting systems, so they don’t have the same problem,” Tucker said.
According to the audit, the sheriff’s office said the delay in preparing the financial documents was also caused, in part, by a “lack of sufficient staffing” in the accounting department.
In addition to the recommendation to move accounting systems to the cloud, staff also suggested the sheriff’s office continue to evaluate the need to hire additional accounting staff and create a detailed plan that includes scheduled dates for the year-end closing process and a recovery plan for financial records.
It’s unclear if the cybersecurity issue impacted anything else in the county.
WCTV asked the sheriff’s office for an interview on Wednesday. They declined, citing an active investigation.
The audit indicates that, at this time, it’s impossible to know how much money this issue could have cost the county.
To view the full audit report, click here.
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