Directory Assistance Savings Adds Up
In May of 2003, the Will County Auditor sent a memo out to all employees of Will County regarding Directory Assistance Charges. At that time, we were paying .50 per call for any directory assistance charges. Our average at that time was 1000 directory assistance calls being placed per month. This was adding up to a cost of $6,493.99 a year that the county was paying for these services. The auditor asked that everyone countywide with Internet access begin using white pages.com or yellow pages.com for these services as they are free. The county has realized a great savings by using this free service. Our savings thus far since the changes were implemented in May of 2003 are:
$2,790.65 First year savings 2003
$3,398.75 Second year savings 2004
$3,739.26 Third year savings 2005
$4018.39 Fourth year savings 2006
$13,947.05 Total Savings
The Auditor’s office is pleased when something so small can save so much of the taxpayer’s money.
Pre-Auditing Every Claim Amounts To
Thousands In Savings
The Auditor’s office continues to pre-audit every claim (voucher) for payment that passes through this office. There are a number of Auditor’s offices in the state that audit vouchers on a “test” basis, which means only certain vouchers selected are audited. Most of these office post-audit, after these bills have been paid.
That has never been the case here in Will County and will never be. Weber is committed to a comprehensive pre-audit. The findings speak for themselves. Over the past few years, Savings to the County have been an impressive $1,432,820.74.
Finding overpayments, duplicate payments, math errors, contracted discrepancies contribute to these savings. Segregation of the bills $10,000 and up to a CPA in the office has been instrumental in the kind of savings that has been realized this past year and a half.
In addition to the direct savings to the county by catching these errors, we are also able to maximize our investments without paying a bill too early by pre-auditing, rather than post-auditing.
Below is a breakdown of the savings year to year, thus far. Weber and his staff are proud of the work done in this effort.
FY 2004 $92,245.01 Savings
FY 2005 $245,715.82 Savings
FY 2006 $196,394.40 Savings
FY 2007 $101,741.02 Savings
FY 2008 $796,724.49 (Savings to date)
$1,432,820.74 Total