Work will begin today on restructuring operations of the Florala Utilities Board.

Chairman Marvin Williford said Tuesday that today’s meeting at 11 a.m. will address some of the findings of a recent audit that revealed nearly 20 findings of internal weaknesses and legal compliance issues – including instances of employee pay loans, insufficient payroll and employee work time accountability and misuse of company property.

“We’re going to talk about trying to reorganize, restructure,” Williford said. “I hope to have an outline of things we can do to get things started.”

Williford said one of those would be a “pro and con list” of merging the daily office operations with those at city hall. That was one of several recommendations auditor Ben Vance of Vance and Associates gave the board earlier this month. Other recommendations included moving the board’s accounting under the direction of the city accountant; implementing segregation of duties for office staff; purchasing a biometric time clock, which requires employee fingerprints to record time; and moving from salaried positions to hourly wages for employees.

Williford said “nothing fast” would be implemented; instead, “we’re going to take it easy and see what happens,” he said.