The recent missing-upload finding is not standing by itself anymore. Six State Board of Accounts reports now give us an unbroken 2005–2025 audit trail: check-image and reconciliation problems, four years without adopted salary resolutions, internal-control standards certified in Gateway even though the trustee told SBOA they had not actually been adopted or fully trained, and then Gateway-upload deficiencies documented from 2018 through 2025. The payroll record still adds its own twist: the paid non-board roster rises from two records to three when Andrew Eder takes office in 2023.
Six SBOA reports cover every year from 2005 through 2025. The subjects change, but a familiar theme keeps returning: records, controls, certifications and required paperwork that did not match what SBOA expected to find.
SBOA said the financial institution returned optical images of only the front side of cancelled checks. Indiana's retention rule required an electronic record of the information on both the front and back.
returns in next reportDepository reconciliations were not presented for examination. The one-sided check-image problem appeared again, and SBOA explicitly tied it back to B31419.
repeat: check imagesThe Township did not adopt a resolution establishing salaries of officers and employees in 2010, 2011, 2012 or 2013. SBOA also found the trustee's bond was $15,000 instead of the required $30,000 in 2011–13.
The township had not adopted required internal-control standards and covered personnel had not received the required training. Yet Gateway had been certified as though both had happened.
becomes prior findingSBOA explicitly repeated the B51337 adoption, training and certification comments. It also found none of the required monthly Gateway files and only part of the required annual files were uploaded throughout the engagement period.
launches Gateway repeat chain2022 had only four months of bank statements and two monthly ledgers; 2023 had no board minutes or monthly ledgers; 2024 had one bank statement and none of the other required monthly or annual files; 2025 had no monthly or annual files. SBOA pointed back to B59913.
repeat: Gateway uploadsThe prior-report references were chased down. They connect the current report to older findings instead of leaving “similar comment appeared before” dangling in the air like government folklore.
Internal-control standards adopted. Covered personnel trained.
The standards had not been adopted and all covered personnel had not received the required training. B59913 says the same certification problem appeared in the prior report.
The 2022–2025 engagement is where the old Gateway problem becomes painfully specific. Pick a year to see exactly what SBOA said was missing.
Monthly ledgers tell the clearest four-year story in the report: 2 of 12 months were uploaded in 2022, then zero monthly ledgers were uploaded in 2023, 2024 and 2025.
Tap any cell for the exact basis. “Broad statement” means the report gives a category-wide statement rather than naming that specific file again. Gray means the finding simply does not tell us.
Pick any record and year to see what the SBOA report says about it.
SBOA states: “A similar comment appeared in prior Report B59913, entitled MONTHLY AND ANNUAL GATEWAY UPLOADS.” That's the part that turns a paperwork problem into a governance question: the issue had already been identified before this engagement period's finding.
Nine annual compensation exports make the staffing change much harder to shrug off as a one-year quirk. From 2017 through 2022, Center Township reported five compensation records every year: a trustee, one clerk, and three board members. In 2023, the first year of Andrew Eder’s term, the report rises to six records with a new assistant role. The paid non-board count stays at three through 2025.
These are paid non-board compensation records, not an FTE calculation. For six consecutive years the pattern is trustee + one clerk. Beginning in 2023, the pattern becomes trustee + clerk + assistant/second clerical record.
That is a 50% increase in the number of paid non-board compensation records compared with the six-year pattern that preceded Eder’s term. The compensation reports do not measure full-time-equivalent staffing, but they do show one additional paid non-board record beginning in 2023.
The longer series shows what the four-year audit window alone cannot: the staffing pattern had been stable for years before 2023. Role groups below are calculated from the job titles in each annual export.
| Name as reported | Job title | Total compensation |
|---|
The schedule of officials matters. The long audit trail spans three trustee eras: Edward Kreutzjans in the 2005–06 audited period, Laurie Blackburn through the later periods ending in 2022, and Andrew Eder beginning in 2023. This section keeps the current 2022–25 finding on the correct desk.
Official term shown in the SBOA report: Jan. 1, 2022 to Dec. 31, 2022. The 2022 compensation export lists 5 total records.
The SBOA report lists Eder's term as Jan. 1, 2023 to Dec. 31, 2026. The compensation exports show two paid non-board records every year from 2017 through 2022. The 2023 export, Eder’s first year as trustee, is where that six-year pattern moves from two to three.
The SBOA report lists Fox as chair from Jan. 1, 2022 to Dec. 31, 2026.
From 2023 through 2025, Center Township reported three paid non-board records, after six straight years at two, while SBOA continued to document missing required Gateway uploads.
By 2025, reported compensation had risen to $34,462.89, while SBOA found that no monthly or annual files had been uploaded for that year.
The key finding appears on report page 4 (PDF page 6). The cover identifies the document as the State Board of Accounts compliance engagement report for Center Township, Jennings County, covering Jan. 1, 2022 through Dec. 31, 2025.