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KEYSER, W.Va. — Mineral County is enlisting outside help in its ongoing battle to bring county financial records and accounts up to date.
On Tuesday the county commission unanimously approved a $7,500 contract with consultant Ron Preast of Government Services of West Virginia. Preast will work with the county clerk’s office and the sheriff’s tax office, both of which are behind on their accounting, to help staff understand the county’s accounting software and streamline the record-keeping process.
The consultant will also look at the county’s actual accounts and attempt to work out any inconsistencies between the two offices, according to County Coordinator Mike Bland.
“The contract will give the offices training ... in terms of account entries, and how to clean up problems that have occurred over the years,” Bland said.
Bland used the analogy of the clerk’s office as the county’s “accounts payable” and the sheriff’s office as its “accounts receivable,” with both offices having to work through their own and the other’s accounting activity.
“This company in the end will assist us, the two offices, to work together in resolving any differences in balances,” Bland said. “It’s not any issue of money being missing, it’s money that should have been in this account or fund versus another.”
The step of bringing in an outside party was discussed in a July meeting of the commission, after tensions between Sheriff Craig Fraley and the commission reached a boiling point over long-delayed financial statements from the sheriff’s office.
At that time, Commission President Wayne Spiggle told Fraley that the commission believed his staff did not understand the accounting system they were being asked to use.
The commission hasn’t received an up-to-date monthly financial statement from the sheriff’s office since the period ending June 30, 2008.
Fraley said Wednesday that he believes “we’re probably a few weeks away from doing a July 2010 settlement.” In June he presented the commission with a statement reconciled through July 2009.
“We’re fixing it,” he said later. “We’ve made big strides, from the 2006 audit all the way up through July 2009.”
Fraley said the commission gave him the task of cleaning up the accounting mess when he took office in January 2009, and he thought it would take six to nine months. But it’s been more difficult than he expected.
He found accounting confusions and errors that included multiple bank accounts that had been moved, closed or combined, and direct deposits from state agencies that were still going to banks no longer used by the sheriff’s office. He said he also had to track down funds withdrawn and invested in money market accounts by the previous sheriff, Gary White.
On March 23, chief tax deputy Kathy Bess told the commission the accounting records would be up-to-date by the end of April.
Contact Megan Miller at mmiller@times-news.com.
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Mineral enlisting outside help to fix accounting woes
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