Quorum Court discusses 2017 audit findings

News-Times
News-Times

The Union County Quorum Court held a special called meeting Tuesday to discuss the county’s audit findings for 2017.

During the meeting, elected county officials, including the tax collector, county judge, treasurer, sheriff and county clerk were questioned on the findings from their offices.

County Judge Mike Loftin said that he originally intended to discuss the audits at the regular quorum court meeting this month, but opted to hold a special meeting instead.

“The findings of this audit have made their way to social media and there’s been a lot of questions asked and the public does not have the answers yet,” Loftin said. “What they’ve actually got is half of the information that they need, so this morning we’ll try to get that other half of the information out so that everybody knows the findings and the answers to those findings.”

The audit states, “The following issues are not significant deficiencies, material weaknesses or material instances of noncompliance, but are issues that are presented to assist in the efficient operation of the county.”

County judge office

The county judge had four issues listed in the audit.

The first issue stated, “On Oct. 5, 2017, we observe a local construction company, owned by the father of the County Judge, acquiring loads of gravel at the County Road Department. During the 2017 audit engagement, we also determined that gravel tickets were not processed for this company on that day. Road Department personnel could not explain this discrepancy.”

Loftin said the load of gravel in question went to a road behind the county shop that leads to the Union County Industrial Board’s dirt pit.

“My dad’s company was buying dirt from Union County Industrial Board,” Loftin said. “They paid UCIB for the dirt.”

Loftin said there was a hole in the road caused by the loaded trucks traveling on that road and his father asked him to fix it.

“I did not have the manpower to take care of that that day and I said, ‘If you’ve got a road grader over there, come get a load of gravel and put it in there yourself.’ And that’s where that load of gravel went.”

Loftin added that the auditors were at the county shop getting information for the year’s audit, “and that truck came through with a load of gravel on it.”

Loftin said his father didn’t pay for that load of gravel because typically filling that hole would be something the county judge maintains, “but if he acquires any gravel from the county for himself, he has to get it out of the county’s pit, pay us for loading it, pay the pit owner for the gravel … same as any contractor would do if they needed gravel.”

The second item on the judge’s audit stated that the county paid $600 to a local company for website design for the Union County Fair without a contract with the Fair Association. Loftin said he has since created a contract with the Fair Association.

The third item stated that competitive bids for purchases in the amount of $475,731 were not solicited and were in noncompliance with the Arkansas code. A similar finding was issued in the prior year’s audit.

Mike Dumas, head of the quorum court’s finance committee, broke down the amount into five items to where that money went.

About $212,000 was spent on lighting that was installed in the courthouse from Entergy.

“We’ve done it at City Hall, we’ve done it at the Chamber of Commerce, we’ve done it at many places,” Dumas said. “There was no bid taken on it because it was a contractor for Entergy that was doing it, but the county had to pay for it.”

About $161,000 was paid to the county contractor for hauling gravel to the county yard every day from the gravel pit in Bradley County.

“The similar finding in a prior report was (the auditors) wanted me to have an agreement with (the gravel hauler), they didn’t say contract,” Loftin said. “So we have a signed agreement for the gravel hauler and now they want him under contract.”

Loftin added that the gravel hauler signed a contract for the remainder of the year in August, and in January, a bid will go out for 2019.

Almost $50,000 was purchased for the El Dorado Fire Department’s hazmat WMD team. The reason that was noted in the audit findings was because at the time, a copy of the bid that was printed in the newspaper could not be located. It has since been located and the auditors have been notified.

About $32,000 was used to purchase a mobile home, which took place without a bid.

Loftin said the park attendant at Felsenthal contacted him stating that she had been sick and thought it was because of mold growing inside the mobile home placed at the park. Loftin added that furnishing the attendant a place to live is part of their benefits.

“She had taken a trash bag in one of the bedroom closets and covered the ceiling with the trash bag,” Loftin said. “I pulled that trash bag down and the ceiling was as black as the trash bag.”

Loftin noted that he saw mold in other places around the home too so immediately bought a new mobile home from El Dorado Mobile Homes.

“I picked out the cheapest thing at the lot that I could find that had three bedrooms in it and sent it down there,” Loftin said.

He added that for selling the old mobile home, the county put a bid out.

Another $20,072 was spent on repairing half of the roof at the county shop. Dumas said the contractor told Loftin the cost would be less than $20,000, but after taxes, the amount was over $20,000.

The fourth item on the judge’s audit stated that the road and sanitation timecards were not signed by employees, approved by supervisor, nor submitted to the county clerk for documentation for hours worked.

Loftin said the employees now have to sign their timecards every week and are also on a time clock.

Due to overtime, Loftin said if the employees work over and are unable to clock out, they turn in their overtime the next morning.

Justice Cliff Preston asked if there was any way to verify that those employees actually worked the overtime. Loftin said the facility has cameras and supervisors who would also be responsible for that.

Sheriff’s office

Union County Sheriff Ricky Roberts answered questions concerning the audit findings at the sheriff’s office.

The first item states that the county provided special privileges to inmates on the 309 work release program being housed in the Union County Jail. Roberts said 309 inmates are sent to their facility to help clean, cook, etc.

“Somewhere back before me, they decided that they were going to do $150 a week to offset the (309) guys helping us,” Roberts said. “Now, I questioned this in 2017 when I took office.”

The $150 was being split between the 11 inmates affected, which they used to purchase food items, including bacon and pork products that they would cook after hours.

The kitchen supervisor was asking the 309s what they wanted from the store.

The audit states that this violated the Arkansas code, which says, “no county shall obtain or appropriate money for any individual.”

“That process is stopped at this point,” Roberts said. “Once they brought it to our attention, we immediately stopped.”

Tax collector’s office

Union County Tax Collector Paula Beard was also present at the meeting to answer questions from the quorum concerning her audit report.

The audit states, “The county was unable to provide adequate explanations for a decrease in property taxes collected of (about $1 million) from 2016 to 2017, even though total assessments increased.”

Beard said she immediately began correcting the deficiencies when brought to her attention. She said the issue stemmed from sending out taxes in 2017 for the 2016 year, the postmaster returned a bulk of the mail and stated that his equipment could not read the addresses.

Beard said that if the taxpayer did not pay their taxes for 2016, they received a two-year bill this year.

“We have collected almost $9 million this month,” Beard said. “Every month since March we have doubled our collections to $21 million. It’s doubled last year.”

Treasurer’s office

The audit states that the treasurer’s December bank accounts were under collateralized by almost $12 million. The treasurer notified the bank several times from August 2017 through January 2018 requesting collateralization, and the bank took responsibility for the uncollateralized accounts in a letter to the county dated Jan. 12.

Union County Treasurer Debbie Ray added that the bank took responsibility for that, “because of all of the emails and phone calls I made and them telling me I was covered.”

County Clerk’s office

The finding for the county clerk’s office states, “The Disaster Recover and Business Continuity plan in place was inadequate (both technical and end user) for restoring from short-term or long-term interruptions of computer processing.”

Union County Clerk Shannon Phillips said the county clerk’s office does have a disaster recovery plan and that the auditors took this off of her audit findings.

“I had written them a letter because they keep writing me up for the exact same thing,” Phillips said. “We have done everything that we can do to try to comply with that. The guy called me and said that he agreed and that they were going to remove that finding.”

See the full audit here.

Kaitlyn Rigdon can be reached at 870-862-6611 or [email protected].

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