Once again the county treasurers office was at the center of attention during today’s county commission meeting. Justin Mitchell of Adams Brown Barren and Ball accounting was before the board to give a report on the problems plaguing the department. Mitchell told the board that they are working to reconcile the books but will still need about 3 weeks to complete the work. The problems started when new treasurer Jan Hull took office because certain financial numbers weren’t transferred from written books to the county software system. At one point the books were off by as much as 3-million dollars although Mitchell could not say how much, if any, discrepancy there is at this time. Mitchell said that this really comes down to getting the necessary information transferred from the books to the software each day and that did not happen.
Commission chair Dan Deming questioned Mitchell as to whether a software program could be added to the current system to make that transition to which Mitchell replied “Yes”. County Administrator Gary Meaghr stated that he had been in conversation with former Treasurer Clark Miller about purchasing such software but Miller decided what was tried and true to his office. Deming said that if Miller would have wanted the software they would have found the funding to do it, even with a 17-thousand dollar price tag.
But former Deputy Treasurer Jim Williams countered that by telling the commissioners that the books aren’t the issue, it is the software the county uses. Williams said that they have been using the written ledgers for 20 years and at no time did Mitchell ever have to come help balance the books. Williams said he met with Hull and her staff about making sure all information was entered correctly and reconciled at the end of each day in the software system, something that according to Mitchell never happened. Mitchell wanted to stress that he’s confident that no illegal wrongdoing is going on just an error in the way the finances are being tracked.