Health Dept. Audit Spots Possible Fund Leaks : Finances: Analysis by auditor-controller also included several proposals to raise revenue by increasing or creating new costs to clients.

A months-long audit of the Ventura County Public Health Department turned up leaky accounting practices that might have cost the agency hundreds of thousands of dollars, officials announced Wednesday.

But county Health Care Agency Director Phillipp K. Wessels, who oversees the public health department, said most of the potential accounting leaks have been plugged as a result of the newly completed audit.

Other remedies will be in place by the end of the year, Wessels said.

The four-page analysis, dated Oct. 27 but not released until Wednesday, identified several areas where money could have slipped through under traditional accounting procedures.

Also included in the audit are suggestions on how to generate extra money by raising certain fees and requesting “voluntary” $20 donations from those seeking HIV tests.

“Basically, that was the intent, to increase revenues wherever possible,” said Auditor-Controller Thomas O. Mahon, whose office conducted the analysis.

Wessels, who announced the report at a news conference with Mahon on Wednesday, said he did not know whether any tax money had been lost because of oversight or theft.

“We could have been losing money,” he said. But “anytime you have concerns, you have to go in and find out what the facts are.”

Wessels, the county health agency director since 1987, said he ordered the audit because he suspected revenues may have been mishandled.

“It was my sense . . . that there were not sufficient accounting procedures in place,” he said. “I wanted to put into place a more businesslike operation.”

Specifically, Wessels and Mahon said new accounting steps had been introduced to keep better track of claims, collections and other invoices.

Management also has centralized billing and state reimbursement procedures to get claims paid quicker and maximize the interest that money could earn, Wessels said.

Also, two financial positions were added recently to help with the centralization effort, the agency director said.

Both Mahon and Wessels said they were unaware of any losses due to mismanagement within the $12-million, 235-employee public health department.

“Usually when you run into a weak situation like this, you can’t prove that something went wrong because the records aren’t there,” Mahon said. “The bigger the bucks you deal with, the bigger the chances of losses.”

Mahon’s audit also included several proposals to raise revenue by increasing or creating new costs to clients.

The report suggests generating $84,000 by raising the flu vaccine cost from $2 to $5, as well as raising $23,000 by increasing the cost of tests for rabies and food poisoning.

The audit also states that voluntary donations of $20 should be made by those who want to be tested for HIV--the virus that causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome. That would raise between $48,000 and $60,000 a year, the report said.

None of those revenue-generating ideas thrilled Supervisor John K. Flynn.

“That’s an example of the bureaucracy taking things into their own hands,” Flynn said. “We don’t want to cause people not to come in for these kinds of shots or tests because there’s a cost involved. There are certain things the taxpayer wants done to protect the public health.”

Flynn also took exception to vagueness in the report, which fails to address specific amounts of taxpayer dollars that may have been lost. He said he would ask the auditor-controller’s office to better detail its findings.

“We need to know if there has been any money lost, and if so, how much,” the supervisor said. “That’s the purpose of an audit.”

Wessels said he routinely audits the six departments under the umbrella Health Care Agency. A restructuring plan that includes a new medical officer and administrative officer has settled many prior accounting problems within the department, he said.

Also, Wessels said, because of limited resources, he spends more time on bigger-budget issues such as Ventura County Medical Center, which operates a budget of almost $90 million annually.

“A hospital can lose a million dollars a day,” he said.