Audit Department writes up county
By: WALTER WEBB, Editor
The State Audit Department came down on Marshall County in a February 2000 audit because the official minute book of the Board of Supervisor meetings had not been updated since June 1998.Chancery Clerk Johnny Taylor said this week that he has put a clerk full-time on the job and the minute book will be updated in about a week.
However, Taylor said the minutes have always been taken, typed up, presented to the Supervisors for approval and accepted each month as required by state law.
"That's always been the case since I have been on the Board," said Board President Robert Lee Sims.
Sims said that the Board had asked Taylor to update the minute book after reports of the audit report have been circulated around the county.
"The minutes are prepared and he will make them available," Sims said. "The only thing is they are not in the big book."
In its annual audit for the year ending September 30, 1999, the audit department noted two instances of noncompliance.
"As of February 29, 2000, minutes were only available through June, 1998. Therefore, the Independent Auditor's Report is qualified because we were unable to examine evidence documenting the actions of the Board of Supervisors which could materially affect the financial statements due to the failure of the Chancery Clerk to prepare the board minutes. Also, since the Board of Supervisors can only speak through the board minutes, any actions taken that are not recorded and approved in the board minutes are not legal," the audit report said.
Board Attorney Gerry Blaker said that because the minutes are always taken at every meeting and are read by the Supervisors and approved, that all county transactions are legal.
"It's just a matter that they haven't been put in that big red binder," Blaker said.
When the auditors made their inspection of county records, they did not ask for any minutes which were not in the binder, Taylor said.
"They just looked in the binder and didn't ask for anything," Taylor said.
The other item of noncompliance concerned inter-fund loans that have not been repaid.
According to the chancery clerk, these loans are bank notes made by the county to pay for paving of subdivision roads under the Sweetwater bill.
Under the bill, residents of a platted subdivision may request that the Supervisors pave their road and a special assessment will be made on their taxes for repayment of the cost of paving.
The county made the bank notes to pay for paving the roads, but in this instance, taxes collected were not sufficient to make the payments on the loans because some residents had not paid their taxes.
Money was borrowed from the county's general fund to make the payments.
"The audit department knows what these loans are about," Taylor said.
The county's response to the audit department's findings was that the repayment of the general fund would be "taken care of as soon as possible."