Hickman Co. Sheriff’s Audit draws concern from officials

The Hickman County Fiscal Court met Sept. 17 in Clinton and reviewed the 2016 Hickman County Sheriff’s Audit report received Aug. 28.
The audit found that disallowed disbursements from 2015 had not been reimbursed to the fiscal court.

The 2015 audit of the Hickman County Sheriff’s fee account disclosed the sheriff owed $940 to his drug fund due to disallowed disbursements of the drug fund and that those disbursements should have been reimbursed to the drug fund from the sheriff’s personal funds. The report said that the sheriff also owed $388 for fee account disallowed expenses in 2015. 2016 audit findings revealed that the sheriff failed to reimburse the drug fund or remit additional excess fees due to the fiscal court because the court voted to approve the disbursements as being allowable disbursements.

The auditor’s reports states that neither the fiscal court nor the sheriff are in compliance because the fiscal court is mandated by statute to collect these amounts. The fiscal court does not have the authority to forgive the sheriff’s disallowed disbursements or to determine the allowability of drug fund or fee account disbursements. Therefore, $940 determined by the prior year audit are still due the to the sheriff’s drug fund from the sheriff’s personal funds, as well as $388 of the sheriff’s personal funds are due to the fiscal court for additional excess fees owed.

The report recommends that the Hickman County Sheriff reimburse the drug fund account $940 and remit excess fees of $388 to the fiscal court, to be paid from his personal funds to cover the disallowed disbursements for calendar year 2015.

In the auditor’s report, Sheriff Green responded:

Since taking office in 2011, I have used the same forms when making buys using drug fund money that was in the drug account. Nothing was said about the forms or paperwork that I was using until the 2013 audit. When I was audited from 2013-2015 for one reason or another there were some disbursements found to be disallowed and these monies were paid back from my personal account even after I would make what I felt was valid arguments that’s the paperwork and forms were correct. In the audit for 2015, there was nothing spent out of the drug account that didn’t have a receipt or proper documentation to show exactly where or how the money was spent.

County Attorney Batts explained to the court that in 2015, the court spoke to the auditors and asked for guidance on how to proceed with their findings. The auditors at that time instructed the court to hold a hearing to determine if the Sheriff’s expenses should be allowed or disallowed. The court held a hearing that resulted in allowing some expenses and disallowing others that required repayment.

Batts said that he contacted the auditors again when the court received the 2016 Sheriff’s audit report to question their findings. The current auditors said that although the court followed the direction of the previous auditors, the court should not have held the hearing and needs to require repayment to be in compliance with state statutes.

“For six years, I have paid back everything that they (the auditors) said. Y’all said that I didn’t have to pay this back,” Sheriff Green told the court, “I don’t get it, because I did what they said and now these auditors are saying that’s against the law.”

Wilson said, “We (the fiscal court) are like you, we thought we were following their (auditors) guidelines.”

The court voted to require Sheriff Green to reimburse the drug fund $940 and to repay $388 to the fiscal court from his personal funds.

A motion was passed by the court to designate the Hickman County Industrial Development Authority to receive TVA in lieu of money.

The court passed Resolution 2018-12 designating Mike Larkins to the Clinton-Hickman County Airport Board. Larkins will be replacing Larry Golden on the board.

The court voted to reopen the east end of Wilson Road (County Road 1186), which will be renamed at a later time.

Wilson said that a fishing box had been installed at the lake at Rotary Park to allow for fish and wildlife to deliver fish to the pond.

The fishing pier will be installed at Rotary Park at the beginning of October.

Batts said that the court had received a letter complaining about the condition of a county property, however the county does not have a nuisance ordinance to regulate the condition of privately owned property. The county will hold fall clean up days on Sept. 28 - 30. Dumpsters will be available on court square for people to dispose of trash.

Present at the meeting were Judge Executive Kenny Wilson, Deputy Judge Executive Dawn Mathis, County Treasurer Amy Crump, County Attorney Jason Batts, Magistrates Irvin Stroud, Kory Naranjo, and Henry Cole.