Apparently plenty.

At last night’s recessed meeting of the Bay St. Louis City Council, Sam Atkinson, the state performance auditor, had loads to report after taking a thorough look inside the city’s operations per the council’s request. She said she’s seen a lot of improvement since January but pointed to a lack of procedures, internal controls, communication and information sharing and other deficiencies. Bottom line: “Statutes were not followed,” she said.

The examples of failings – discrepancies in signatures, lapsed insurance payments, journal entry mistakes, blind financial decisions, etc. – are plentiful, but, Atkinson said, they’re all fixable. Consider them opportunities, she suggested on a closing note after three hours of detailing what went wrong.

We will have an opportunity to see how this plays out at the next recessed meeting on Monday.