BENTON – [VIDEO FOLLOWS REPORT] Judge/Executive Kevin Neal opened Tuesday’s Fiscal Court meeting by expressing his thanks for the prayers and phone calls while he was ill, to his staff and those in the community.
Proceedings then went into discussions about the State Auditor’s office recommendation for Interagency Agreements between the Fiscal Court and the Marshall County Refuse Department, Kentucky Lake Visitor and Convention Bureau and Marshall County Clerk for services provided to them by the Marshall County Treasurer’s office and the method in which they are paid.
Neal began by reading the agreement between the Refuse Department and the Treasurer’s Office and the terms and provisions set out. Either party may terminate the agreement by providing 60 days written notice.
Commissioner Rick Cocke, after the first reading, said he was not prepared to discuss or vote on it due to two of the commissioners learning about the situation in the last Fiscal Court meeting’s Executive Session.
Cocke said he has attended every Refuse Board meeting concerning their document and their agreement which were prepared by Attorney Dennis Foust. Cocke said the concern of the Refuse Board, or at least the concern of the person who signed it, was the area of “fringe benefits” which does not include an actual figure.
“The way this is structured is that it will only change with Fiscal Court approval”, County Treasurer Emily Martin said. “The reason the fringe is stated like it is, is because retirement, their rate changes every year.”
“This would clear up the issue with the auditor’s concerns on how this happened in this current fiscal year”, Commissioner Bob Gold said of the Interagency Agreements.
Cocke repeatedly spoke about these documents fixing the second half of the fiscal year, but questioned how to take care of the first half of the fiscal year that was also part of the audit.
“In my eyes, the state auditor has made us aware, by an opinion, what’s gone on is the monies are coming into this county by whatever source, and there’s a disagreement about that”, Cocke said. “In this situation, an outside source was taking funds in and they weren’t being deposited.”
Martin responded by saying, “Those dollars do not come into the county, they’re a special government entity and they remain with that special government entity. In the past they paid us directly. It was not omitted from the county budget. It went directly to us as employees doing work for those entities. Those funds were budgeted and audited with all of those entities. This is fulfilling the recommendation of the auditor to bring those funds into the fiscal court general fund. No work functions have changed. The only thing that will be changing is the flow of the pay.”
Neal addressed that it is not uncommon, in speaking with the auditor, “that say a clerk’s office will have the treasurer’s office do work for them.”
“They even went as far as saying the clerks can even work after hours, they can moonlight”, Neal said. “There’s nothing illegal at all, it’s more or less, the current auditor’s office is saying if we are going to continue to do business this way, then we need to have this agreement in place.”
Cocke said he learned 7 ½ months ago that this was taking place, “Bob and Johnny learned it last Tuesday in Executive Session that it was taking place.”
“I want everybody to understand, what we’re trying to do is be in compliance with what the state auditor is recommending”, Neal said.
Neal proceeded to read the other two Interagency Agreements with the County Clerk’s Office and the Kentucky Lake Visitor and Convention Bureau.
For the record, Neal requested council’s opinion, to comment on these agreements.
“The agreements are fine”, Foust said. “They clarify and basically comply with the auditor’s request. While all the i’s may not have been dotted and all the t’s may not have been crossed, there’s nothing that would suggest anything that would be in violation of the criminal code.”
Martin said her office had not been recommended to do this until the past month for duties they have performed their entire time of employment in the office.
Cocke repeating again saying, “it’s happened on my watch and I’m responsible for the taxpayer’s money and we are correcting it now, but this body did not give approval for that to take place nor did the Miller administration when he was here.”
Martin responded, “there was no need for it to, because it came through the entity itself.”
“That’s where we disagree”, Cocke said.
“Everybody has complied with that”, Martin said. “There was no prior wrong-doing, this is just making it more transparent for everyone.”
Gold moved to allow Judge Neal to sign these agreements that have already been signed by the three entities. It was seconded by Judge Neal. Gold and Neal voted aye, Cocke abstained.
Cocke feels it was wrong for the money to go directly into somebody’s paycheck without his knowledge to which Deputy Judge Brad Warning responded, “That’s because that decision was made by those entities and those boards.”
Neal said we are saving the taxpayers money by having those duties performed by the treasurer’s office within a 40 hour work week, instead of hiring out those duties, which does not compromise what the fiscal court wants them to do.
“What do you want to happen”, Warning asked of Cocke.
“I want the taxpayers dollars that I’m responsible for, be transparent in this situation”, Cocke said. “We are correcting that with this agreement. But how we got to this point is concerning to me and it was 13 months on my watch before I realized where these dollars were going.”
Neal said, when it comes to budget time, we will see those dollars coming into the general fund but that a decision needed to be made now to revise the budget and feels it is the appropriate thing to do. Cocke feels that the time to do this is at budget time.
Gold moved to revise the budget and make an amendment, not wanting to reduce the pay of the Treasurer’s Office employees’ pay for services they have been providing, which was approved by both Gold and Neal and opposed by Cocke with “a loud no”.
During the Fiscal Court meeting, court recessed at 10:00 am to hold a public hearing on the proposed county maintenance of the Hill Creek Subdivision roads. The road committee appointed did on site inspections and observed that Hill Creek Subdivision roads meet or exceed all requirements for acceptance into county road maintenance. Comments for or against were requested by Neal to which there were none. A vote will take place at the next Fiscal Court meeting on January 3, 2017.
Cocke asked what is required by law in acting on voting the subdivision roads into county maintenance at Tuesday’s meeting instead of waiting for the next meeting for a vote saying, children in the subdivisions must walk to Hwy. 68 to catch the bus.
After searching and making a couple of phone calls, a determination was not made until further research can be done.
The next meeting of the Fiscal Court is Tuesday, January 3, 2017.