With the new Sevier County Audit in hand it appears that some of the county’s spending are in question, while overall, the audit came back with a favorable report.
According to the 200-page audit, findings show discrepancies in the offices of the county mayor, director of schools, county clerk, and the sheriff's department.
The state audits the counties to see they your tax dollars are being spent appropriately.
The audit found seven cases where spending was in question.
Most of the infractions appear to be minor such as maintenance employees not filling out purchasing orders for each purchase. One maintenance worker was forced to re-pay the county more than $700 for two water heaters he bought on the county's tab for personal use. The worker claimed it was an oversight.
Sevier County Mayor Larry Waters told the Seymour Herald, “The employee is also a plumber and when he picked up the water heaters he told the store to charge them to his account. They just charged it to the wrong account. We actually caught that ourselves and passed it along to the auditors.”
Other items include a corrections captain at the Sevier County Jail who also was holding down a full time custodial job for the school system. The audit showed his time cards were overlapping and that his mother, also a school system employee, was signing them.
School Director Jack Parton stated that the employee had completed his work for the school district and said at times he has worked longer than the minimum 40 hours that he was required to. That employee has since resigned from his custodial job, but still works for the jail.
Next, the sheriff's department was cited for not getting bids before buying jail food. But Sheriff Ron Seals stated that bids were taken, they were just not documented. Seals told the Seymour Herald, “We shop for the best price on whatever we need and they just found the best price and purchased it. We are in the process now of following the recommendation of the auditors and securing and documenting bids.”
The county clerk was cited for buying equipment from a general fund, without the permission or approval of the commission.
The worse case in the report was the loss of $16,000 from the general sessions court office. That shortfall was reportedly caused due to a former employee who has been charged with stealing the money. A court date is pending in that case.
All in all, the number of violations was small.
According to Waters, “Considering we are covering almost $200,000 million dollars in spending with 3,300 employees I think the report overall is positive and there was no major findings. There are always ways we can look to improve our system.
I think the audit is a good tool for improvement and it gives us a chance to look at the state auditors recommendations for changes that we may want to make.”
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User Comments
If the maintenance worker that was forced to repay the $700 for water heaters just had the bill charged to the wrong account and it was the store clerks' fault, why was he fired? Larry's excuses just don't add up. How can you work TWO jobs at once and be paid for both (with your Mom signing your time card?) Was any money paid back in that instance? When the person was fired from the school system, his daughter took his job. Was that job opening posted according to the rules? This entire audit and the corrections reek of back-room deals and underhanded nepotism. There is a complete lack of oversight and accountability in Sevier County and that comes from a lack of leadership.
2 county employees lost their jobs after the audit. A third former employee is in court accused of embezzeling over $16,000 of taxpayer money. And the oldest Non-corrected recommendation by the auditors is that there is no oversight and checks and balances system in place to catch this type of thing. Most of the things the auditors found were things that had been pointed out by concerned citizens. Everywhere the auditors were asked to look, they found violations. Too bad they didn't keep looking. They ran out of time before they ran out of violations.
Since there is no centralized accounting system with checks and balances, there is really NOT an audit per se, it is more like a math check where if 2+2=4 and Larry says we had 4, things are OK. The auditors didn't find anything and were ready to leave when some concerned citizens asked them to look specifically at certain items. When they did, they found taxpayer money missing. We need a regular system of checks and balances just like most of the other counties in TN. The auditors recommend it every year and Larry simply says no, he wants control. As we see, he doesn't control our money very well now. Over $17,000 of taxpayer money is in question - and they want to raise taxes again soon. Mayor Waters, Clean it up!
Good the Auditors did take some time to review those invoices called to their attention, there are more to come and we await their return! The 'intent' of use and method by which public assets and employees are utilized is not within the scope or standard of the audit division and their employees - however, they are concerned these matters are reported to the Conptroller's Hotline - `1-800-232-5454, at which time they are evaluated and further investigated if warranted; public corruption, graff and personal use, or misuse fall under the perview of other agencies who collect and review this information, they are there for your contacting and are delegated with their own responsibilities to the public - as the open meetings laws specify method and manner of doing public business, there are likewise constraints on nepotism, conflict of interest and cronyism, of which all should be aware and appreciative. Rather than scold those who are interested in Better Government in Sevier County, why not step up and account for yourself, your families and the general public and mandate changes in how business is done in Sevier County?
Peggy your the best! You should run for Mayor!!! ;-)
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