Marshall County Attorney to Participate with Auditor Mike Harmon’s Office in Pilot Program

Marshall County Attorney Jason Darnall (right) with Auditor Mike Harmon.

FRANKFORT, Ky. (August 11, 2022) – Today, Auditor Mike Harmon announced that Marshall County Attorney Jason Darnall is one of 23 county attorney offices that have volunteered to participate in a pilot program with the goal of making county attorney offices across the Commonwealth more accountable and transparent to taxpayers.

“I applaud Marshall County Attorney Darnall for agreeing to be part of our pilot program,” said Auditor Harmon. “The Marshall County Attorney’s office will receive an agreed-upon procedures (AUP) review by my office, which in layman’s terms is a simplified financial review of their operations. The goal is to educate Kentucky’s 120 county attorneys on the auditing process, while working toward routine reviews of their offices by auditors.”

Over the past year, Auditor Harmon’s office worked with the Kentucky County Attorneys Association to develop the AUP pilot program and sought volunteers among county attorneys to participate in the initial review.  It’s part of a concerted effort by Auditor Harmon and the association to elevate the accountability and transparency level of county attorneys’ offices.  This effort also led to the passage of House Bill 782 during the most recent session of the General Assembly.  HB 782 establishes clear end-of-term office transfer protocols for county attorneys and requires annual financial reporting by county attorneys to the Prosecutors Advisory Council beginning July 1, 2023.

“We appreciate Auditor Harmon and his staff working collaboratively with our association to develop a system of review for county attorney funds.  These commonsense measures will increase transparency and ensure the smooth transition of funds at the end of our terms.  We thank our volunteer county attorneys for piloting the AUP program,” said Stacy Tapke, Kenton County Attorney and President of the Kentucky County Attorneys Association.

“I was more than happy to volunteer the Marshall County Attorney’s Office for this pilot program.  The taxpayers deserve to know that all public monies are being handled appropriately and an independent review is a vital step in that process.  We are excited to be one of the first counties to voluntarily open our books to the Auditor’s Office,” said Marshall County Attorney Darnall.

The idea for the pilot program came from a special examination of select county attorney offices in 2020 by Auditor Harmon’s office.

“While state law gives my office the ability to examine county attorney offices, unlike county sheriffs, clerks and fiscal courts, there is no law requiring county attorneys to receive annual financial statement audits,” Auditor Harmon said. “In our special examination, we recommended that county attorney offices should receive more fiscal oversight. It is our hope this pilot program will serve as the road map for county attorneys to attain that goal.”

The Marshall County Attorney Office will receive an AUP for Fiscal Year 2022 which ended on June 30th, and the AUP report will be released by Auditor Harmon’s office when completed.