Ascension Court Catches $1 Million Accounting Error

GONZALES, La. (AP) — An accounting error discovered last summer cost the Ascension Parish Court $1.173 million over seven years. But it's been corrected and a plan put into place for the court to recover the lost funds.

The error might boil down to two financial accounts that had very similar names.

Ascension Parish Court Judge Marilyn Lambert tells The Advocate at the heart of the funds in question is a $100 bench warrant fine that people pay when they miss their court date and must reschedule.

Sixty dollars of each of those fines collected go to the judicial expense fund of Parish Court.

But, at some point in 2006, the $60 collected from each fine began to go, instead, to the judicial expense fund.