Legislative Joint Auditing-Counties and Municipalities
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Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
0:00
the subcommittee on counties and municipalities of latest slave joint auditing committee. So if you're looking for something else you're in the wrong room. The other two committees are elsewhere on the first floor of the two subcommittees and so we will try to help you out and if you have any questions on how to do that Representative Jean down there will help you figure it all out. So I would like to take a moment and I'll start with on the left with first with my co-chair representative rye introduce himself and then
uh representative underwood and then we'll go around the table i want everyone to know who is here
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
0:41
today a member of our committee so johnny yes sir thank you um thank you
for all thank you all for being here today uh representative johnny rye i'm co-chair with uh with co-chair johnson and And we're so glad that you guys have shown up. And this is a pretty big
Representative Kendon Underwood
Unverified
1:04
Representative Underwood. Kenan Underwood, District 16 from Northwest Arkansas.
Speaker 9
1:13
and then we'll go down this way. Steve Kroll. Steve Kroll, Vice Chair, District
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:20
3. Matt Stone, District 2. Ben Gilmore, District 1. And these are
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
1:29
senators, by the way. Now. Representative Kendra Moore, District 23. Representative Carol Dalby, District
Speaker 21
1:36
100. Representative John Maddox, District 86.
Representative Lanny Fite, District 83. Alternate
Speaker 22
1:47
Representative Watson, District 88. Senator Fred Love, District 15
Speaker 24
1:56
Representative Lane Jean, District 99 Are you just here incognito, Representative
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
2:03
McElroy? Okay, first of all Representative Rice asked what we said on the precedent today
so I'm going to ask a member if they'll say a brief opening prayer and Senator Stone, would you please honor us with a brief opening prayer?
Speaker 29
2:21
this afternoon. Thank you and praise you. We just honor you today. Lord, we just thank you for everything you do for us. We thank you for the rain that we have today. Lord, I just pray that everything that's been done is that we take glory and honor to be united. We just have two things in
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
2:36
Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Senator. And the Lord knows as
we're doing the people's business, we need all of his help that we
can get. So, appreciate you all being here today. Our first order of business will be to adopt the minutes of the December 1st, 2022 meeting. Is there a motion? Representative Underwood, second. Senator Kroll, all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Thank you. I recognize our full committee chairs. Here's Senator Wallace and Representative Gassaway are here, so everyone be on your best behavior because they'll be taking roll and checking everything.
So thank you for being here. Um, we need to move now to the discussion of, uh, uh, on highway turn back fund repayment, uh, act 709 of 2021. And, uh, Tim, I believe
we have someone from, someone from Fulton here, uh, from someone from Haynes is
here. Okay. Uh, is, is anyone representing the town of Haynes? Okay. Well, please come to the table and sit at the end and you can push that button and turn
Turn your microphone on and introduce yourself to the committee for the
Speaker 37
4:01
record. Mayor C. Thomas Haynes on Highway 1 between Forest City and Midorah, Arkansas.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
4:09
Okay. And, Mayor, Mike wasn't quite close to you. Your last name is? Thomas. Mayor Thomas.
Thank you for being here today. Do you have a statement you'd like to make to the committee before we get into the details of this,
Speaker 39
4:26
Mayor Thomas? Yes, we go into it, and whatever I need to do,
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
4:30
we're just trying to get you an answer. Okay, and I'm going to kind of bring everybody back up to speed on this. We have some instances, and believe me, Haynes is not the first town that's had this problem, but highway revenue comes in.
The highway turnback funds are supposed to go only into the road fund. And some cities, perhaps some counties, I don't know if counties, but definitely cities have mistakenly put that money in their general fund and spent it for expenses that are not appropriate for those funds. So we have a system, and under the law, and I believe that's Act 709, is it not, Mr. Jones, that requires that 10% of general revenue be used to pay that back.
So we have a formula. I think we may have to adjust that formula. The committee has the authority to waive the hard application of that formula, but basically we want each individual community to pay the money back to the proper fund over a period of time. And sometimes that can be a little bit onerous, but we want to make sure that's done. And, Mayor, I'm hearing you say that you're willing to do that. Yes, sir. We
Speaker 41
5:51
are trying to pay $100 back a month on that.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
5:55
Now, Mayor, the only problem that I personally have, and this is a committee decision, not my decision, But the calculation that our staff has done, it would take 15.94 years to pay that back at $100 a month. And I just wanted to start out by asking, could your city make a bigger payment than that? No, sir. We cannot.
Speaker 37
6:21
The revenue doesn't come in for that great amount.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
6:26
Okay. And remember, you are paying it to
yourself. you're paying it to your street fund and when there's that money is not in that street fund and that's a pothole that doesn't get filled in Haines it's not affecting what happens here in Little Rock it's affecting your people so I'm just wondering if that could could be adjusted or would you reconsider that in the future maybe to adjust that to where it would be a little bit much I know what it is to try to balance your budget, and I appreciate that.
But we're looking at ways to bring you in compliance with the accounting laws and only spend the money as it's supposed to be spent. So is there any questions from the committee members for Mayor Thomas about these things? And I already see Representative Fite has grabbed his microphone. You recognize Representative Fite. Thank you,
Mr. Chairman. This would be
Speaker 48
7:23
to staff. Okay. What would be the penalty if they failed to pay that payment?
Speaker 51
7:31
Well, in 27-7207, the law says that the Legislative Joint Audit Committee has the discretion to withhold the turn-back funds for the city. if the city either fails to pass an ordinance or resolution to repay 10% and actually repay it or have had paid all the money back by the end
Speaker 55
7:56
are you talking about fuel turn back money? Yes, we're
Speaker 56
8:00
talking about street turn back in this case,
the portion of the state turn back that goes to
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
8:07
the street funds. That could be the half-cent sales tax, also the millage, road millage, or
Speaker 56
8:14
the road millage is included in that law because 277207 refers to state turn-back funds, I believe.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
8:20
And the local what we used to call three-mil road tax, maybe more than that in some places now, but that is a local tax.
So that would not, we would not be affected. This is actually the turn-back that comes from RDOT,
goes to the individual municipality. Is that
correct? I believe so. Okay, and
Speaker 54
8:43
with that being, Mr. Chair, may I have a follow-up? Of course. Please follow up, Representative. Okay. With that being said, the 3% road mill is a constitutional amendment. Also, the half-cent sales tax, whether the temporary or now the permanent, they're both constitutional amendments. What's the violation when they spend that money?
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
9:06
I'm not sure. I think that's a question we may have to run by the lawyers or maybe even the AG on that. But it's a good question, and we'll look into that. But today, I don't think I can give
you a good answer on it. And also, we discussed this in the executive committee. When the Act 709 refers to 10% of general revenues, We just recently got a definition under a 2023 Act that defines what is general revenues, because we need to know that.
And so we'll get all these questions sorted out and answered, but I don't think we have today. Of course, we have Chairman Gasolay, who probably knows all these answers, and I would defer to him if he has one he could add to us. shaky his head. I won't put him on the spot, but we will get that answer. I think it's a very good question, and if they're receiving the turn back from the half-cent general sales
tax or from other funds, would that be separate from that? And again, they do receive a portion of the three-mile road tax collected by the counties. Okay. At the proper time, I'd like a question to the mayor, please. Okay, unless there's someone in queue ahead of you, this is a proper time representing a fight you recognize. Okay, Mayor Thomas, is that correct? Yes,
Speaker 54
10:38
sir. Okay. Mayor, have you been doing any road work with any of this?
No, we haven't. And I saw in 2014 you had a project through the state, I mean through the city aid system through the state. That was, yeah, before my time. Okay.
Speaker 39
11:00
Are your roads in pretty good shape? Yeah, there's streets in some parts of the town.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
11:06
Okay. That's all I have. Okay. Thank you, Representative. Thank you, Mayor. Other questions for Mayor Thomas?
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
11:20
I've got one question. Co-Chair Roth. Yes, sir. Does anyone in particular know if that penalty is
mentioned within the law concerning the sales tax on the books or the road system? Does anyone know? You're talking about
Speaker 79
11:44
the constitutional half-cent? That's what we just
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
11:46
agreed to find out in the long run because we,
at least for my part,
I'm not willing to stick my neck out and say it's one way or the other because I don't think we're
quite sure. But we'll get an answer for the committee, and we'll see if the staff gets that answer out to the committee because it's a good question.
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
12:09
Representative Dalby. Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is a
question for the staff. I'm just thinking about the statute in which, when does it come into play that we then move to dissolve a town that's unable to pay their bills or to, you know, we have a statute on the books and when, I mean, not that I'm saying we necessarily need to do it to this town, but at some point in time, if they can't pay their bills and they can't pay the state back and they're not using the money the way that they're supposed to use the money, when does that statute kick in?
Speaker 51
12:41
That statute is in the Municipal Accounting Law, which is in 1459-117, I believe, and it is for substantial noncompliance with the Municipal Accounting Law. And so it's in that section between 1459-101 and 119, and those things deal with accounting practices from basically reconciling bank accounts, keeping adequate receipts and disbursements records to, you know, having supporting documentation for expenditures, those kind of things.
There's a long list of things. and when the committee actually the code says whenever we or a private auditor brings to the committee a situation where we believe the city isn't in substantial non-compliance with that code that's when you begin the process of withholding the turn back funds now this law doesn't doesn't fall in there technically it has something to do with it but it's not technically in that section of the code.
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
13:51
Representative Brown. Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is a
question for the staff. Situations like this have come up before. What actually happens if a city is dissolved? Who takes care of taking care of the
services for the residents? Are they
Speaker 51
14:16
just not handled? Well, there's a section of the code that lays that out very clearly. It's 1462-something.
Anyway, there is a situation where the county takes back over that city. If they have a water department, there's a situation for that. I think there's a receivership set up to handle those things. So we haven't seen that happen yet, but there is a section of the code that lines that out. Thank you. And I
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
14:48
might add, Representative Brown, I won't mince words. We have a pending lawsuit, and I'll get to Senator Love in just a moment.
We have a pending lawsuit. The previous Attorney General had been involved in litigation with one municipality to the east of us here that was found in substantial noncompliance. the attorney general griffin dismissed that suit and filed another one in its place and i expect to see that be moving forward a little quicker than it was before but certainly we're going to be plowing some new ground here and get some answers to that but that's that's uh again
substantial non-compliance but yes we can do that and you are in effect disincorporated A community would lose its charter and would become part of the unincorporated part of the county. And in most of these things, Representative Brown, it would fall under the quorum court and the county judge, just as any other unincorporated area of the city would. Now, if you've got a water system, outstanding bonds, say, for that water system, then all those things have to be taken into the receivership. But there is a procedure outlined in statute for it,
And I guess there's some, the county court and the
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
16:09
quorum court would have some authority there. Well,
I'm not wishing to be punitive, but it seems like when a city gets in a situation where they just can't dig themselves out, this process, you know, needs to halt at some point. Keep bringing them to the table and
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
16:29
saying, what are you doing about it? Yes, ma'am. Well, and let me respond by saying, you're absolutely right, of course. But in the instances that we've just cited, there's a difference between we made a mistake, we're trying to straighten it out, we have a plan to straighten it out, versus the substantial noncompliance, which they don't do audits, they don't respond to the staff getting in touch with them, and they, frankly, in some cases, thumb their nose at the state and at the auditors.
So those are the ones that fall into that category, and I know the one that Representative Dalby was referring to, it appears to be that case, although a circuit judge will make that determination. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, ma'am. Any specific questions for Mayor Thomas? I know it's a broad issue. I'm sorry, is this more to him or just in general, Senator Love? You're recognized. Thank
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
17:27
you, Mr. Chair, and I think I'm familiar with the Haynes case somewhat,
but I guess in general, when we're talking about the city's repaying of their street fund, is that the
repayment to the state, or is it just repaying to their city street fund?
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
17:50
their own fund. They moved it out of general revenues, which it was inappropriately placed in, and moving it on a set schedule
back to the street fund where it should have gone on the first place. Yeah, so it's
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
18:02
their street fund. It's not really a repayment to the state so much as it's a repayment to their street fund. That is correct. Yes,
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
18:09
sir. All right. I just wanted to get clarification. Thank you. Thank you, Senator. Any questions for Mayor Thomas?
Is there any desire of the committee to recommend any change in the repayment that was requested
by Haynes of $100 a month from their general revenue to their street fund? Representative Fyfe. Thank you, Mr. Chair. You know,
Speaker 54
18:40
as we've seen, we've had two previous ones right here, and they've been anywhere from eight to ten years.
Now we're moving up close to 16 years on this. So at what point do we say, you know, we've had some in the past that had a payment plan. It was 400 years to pay it back, you know. So at some point, I think there needs to be a cutoff on how many years it will be. I appreciate you saying
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
19:15
that, Representative Fyton. and I want to throw this out to the committee, not necessarily that we resolve this today,
but in discussions with staff and in the executive committee, I think we need a formula. We need a rule based on the amount of their revenue, how much they owe. Right now we're looking at, there's a presumption, they can take 10% of general revenue, which we have recently more clearly defined what that is, And that may be a number that can vary, but we need to have, in my opinion, my recommendation,
the committee should decide on a formula to calculate that and maybe even allowing for some flexibility or a sliding scale depending on the total size of the budget of that community. But I think we need to have something other than whatever number is thrown out at this meeting monthly, and I think it has to be something that you can look at and calculate. Would you agree with that, Representative Fyke?
Speaker 54
20:22
Yes, I would. Let me say this. When I looked at this a few years ago,
we had 39 cities that were in violation of this, and 37 of them had got state aid grants to do their streets from the highway department, and so they had no other used for the money and so that this is one way they spent it and that may need to be addressed at some point but of all the 39 at that time all but one of them had lost population drastically over the last so they're they're shrinking revenues for their turn back revenues shrink
significantly every time so this gets more difficult for them to pay it back each cycle every 10-year cycle so I just thought I would add that in there but I think there needs to be a formula in place this committee needs to do if not the next one comes in there 20 years do we say no to
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
21:22
them yeah that's a very good point and thank you for bringing that up when we we're not picking on our communities are losing population and a lot of them are in in the delta and we know that
and we know there are certain infrastructure costs that are set in stone, so to speak. They're set in concrete or asphalt, and I appreciate that,
but we do need to make sure that from an accounting standpoint, which is 90% of what we're looking at here, that the communities are in compliance.
And with the acquiescence of the committee, and I don't know if we need a motion, we might, But I will be asking the staff to come up with some recommendation of a formula,
certainly one we can tweak or change as we deliberate on it. But with the agreement of the committee, I will ask the staff to come up with some set of rules, I'm going to say, to be able to modify this straight 10% of general revenues. Again, if there's some outstanding bond issue which has been excluded under the new law or there was some, say they passed a local option sales tax, but it was earmarked for particular things, we'll take that into consideration.
But we need to have some way where you just can't say, hey, we just don't want to pay any more than this much a month. We need to have, and I want it to be objective. I want it to be fair to the city that comes in in the May meeting and the one that comes in in the June meeting should get the same treatment. So without objection, I will request the staff give us some general guidance on that and we'll vote maybe as early as next month's meeting on a framework for a policy.
Is there any comment or question about that?
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
23:16
Senator Love. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So if we're going to be waiting for staff to come up with suggestions, then what
are we doing with the reports today? My intent will be the
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
23:30
committee will decide on the two reports today about whether we will allow the request to be presented. And I tend to be more lenient in that until we've come up with a more solid policy.
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
23:44
But again, that's going to be the will of the committee. I mean, because I guess I'm
just trying to kind of make sense of this in a way. What I mean by that is that if we're going to make sure that the criteria that they come up with is applied to everybody, then that means we shouldn't hear these reports today because it wouldn't, I mean, we couldn't make a decision on, you know, we couldn't treat everybody the same way. If we pass these reports out or if we keep these reports or we make some sort of decision
and then the staff comes back with, hey, you know what, these are kind of the criteria that we come up with, then we
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
24:24
couldn't apply that criteria today. I don't disagree with you, Senator. As
a matter of fact, I would offer that if you would make such a motion that we would postpone the consideration of these requests for a waiver from the 10% rule, then we would
not consider them until such time that we've come up with a new formula.
Is that something you would be interested in
Speaker 118
24:48
making a motion for? Well, since I'm a moonlighter on this committee, I would say that... A moonlighter.
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
24:55
You are not a moonlighter. That Senator Gilmore could make that motion. Since I'm not a standing member on this committee.
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
25:04
Okay. Since you threw me under the bus there, Senator Love, I'd be happy to make that motion. that we, I guess, hold on these reports until we have come up with some sort of a formula with staff?
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
25:18
That's a proper motion. Is there a second? Second by Representative Brown. Does everyone understand
the motion? Any discussion? Okay. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Thank you. We've adopted the motion. The staff will come back. Now, Mayor Thomas, what that means is we have deferred consideration of your request until we come up with some semblance of a fair and equitable formula that we would apply to every municipality in the same situation.
So I don't want to have to drag you down every time we do this, and I appreciate you coming today, but I think this should mitigate in your town's favor if you'll allow
us to work on this. We want to be fair with you, and we want to be fair from this point forward, not just a month from now. So we'll defer this. You don't have to do anything else today, but we appreciate you coming in, and thank you. And is there anything we can do for you today? All right. Thank you very much.
Speaker 126
26:24
He has a report that we... Hold on. You've got... Can you come down? Is
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
26:32
this on? Yes, it's one. Mayor, don't run off yet. You don't leave the room. You're certainly welcome to leave the end of the table, but we have another issue from an audit finding we'll bring up a little bit later in the meeting at the appropriate time. But on the highway turn back thing, you're okay for this month, but don't leave yet. We've got something else that will come up momentarily. Okay. And that also, that would apply to Fulton.
We will defer Fulton until the June meeting, until we have some kind of policy. Okay, folks, bear with us, and we'll get to the
reports. Okay, without objection, we'll begin the review of reports, and I recognize Mr. Jones to go over those. Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair. I
Speaker 51
27:23
just wanted to go over the policy of what we usually do. you have before you a synopsis of the findings of the reports, and it's been the committee's policy
to review the findings that are going to the bond board, the prosecuting attorneys, and those that are repeat findings. If there are findings that are repeated and the same official is still in office, we have invited those officials to the meeting, and we usually review the reports where we have officials here first. The first report we have with some officials here is the City of Alexander. It's the second report on page one.
Speaker 56
28:06
And we do have some officials from Alexander here, is my understanding.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
28:12
Would the officials from Alexander go to the end of
Speaker 51
28:21
the table, please? Actually, okay. And it looks like they're aldermen. They're not necessarily the mayor. And they were not necessarily invited because of a repeat finding. I think they're here just because they wanted to be. And anyway, we'll review this finding.
It's a finding that's going to be certified to the bond board. Okay. During the period January 1, 2021 through August 25, 2022, the bookkeeper received salary overpayments totaling $20,088 and undocumented mileage reimbursements totaling $641. In addition to review the payroll records for the bookkeeper who was responsible for preparing disbursements and maintaining payroll records revealed the following. Wages received in 2021 exceeded budget by $34,873. The bookkeeper reported working an
excessive number of hours on our time sheets, 1,600 overtime hours, including as much as 18 hours in a single day, and as much as 181 hours during a two-week pay period, 945 weekend hours, including as much as 16 hours in a single weekend day, and as much as 30 hours during a two-day weekend. The bookkeeper reported working hours while out of the office, 115 hours according to time clock cards where the bookkeeper is on sick leave. 29 hours for attending a conference which
the bookkeeper was not registered and there was no evidence she attended. Hours reportedly worked while she was traveling on three vacations according to social media posts. As of August 20th, 2022, the bookkeeper had negative sick and vacation leave balances. In addition, 51 sick leave hours and 160 vacation hours used during the review period were not deducted from her leave balances. The bookkeeper was terminated on October 11, 2022.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
30:23
Okay. Ladies, would you please
Speaker 138
30:25
turn on your mics, identify yourselves for the record. I am Juanita Wilson. I'm one of the council members. I've been a council member for
Speaker 139
30:36
12 years now. Okay. And I'm Joanne Allen Churchill. Hill, I'm the city treasurer. Okay, thank
Speaker 141
30:41
you both for coming. And do you all have any response to the
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
30:47
things that were mentioned by staff? I assume you all have read the report and you're aware of it. Yes, sir. We're very aware of it.
Speaker 138
30:56
We're very unhappy about it. We know she did wrong. She was terminated immediately when we found out what was going on. At the time, the mayor of our city had tried to get her to come in, and she came in and was supposed to go take a drug test, and she drove off without doing it. So we terminated her immediately. We did not know what was going on because the mayor did payroll reports, but he signed for a payroll that is over 50 people, not just one person.
So whatever she did, as far as I'm concerned, she needs to go to jail for. That's my considered opinion because I've been in this city for 12 years. I gave up my salary for two years when our city was in such poor shape we couldn't even pay the bills. Our former mayor did the same thing. And I believe that if people take from a city who we're just getting on our feet, we actually have a plus balance in our accounts because i'm one of the check signers for the city
there are three of us and i know what our accounts are and we've worked hard we've had we had to pay back 96 000 from a mayor who spent street funds somewhere else and it took five years to get that paid so whatever they want to do to a prosecutor i don't care i'm you know if you've done this wrong to this town and these people trusted you, then you need to go to jail. Okay.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
32:33
Ms. Churchill, would you like to add anything to Ms. Wilson's comments?
Speaker 139
32:37
Yes, sir. Please. In addition to the charges that are listed on there, she also violated office policy in signing her own checks. She was paying herself directly out of checks, and we use ProLiant for our payroll and she was using the mayor's signature stamp without permission.
And my personal opinion is that she probably had a copy of that signature stamp made for herself. But it is against the law for anyone to sign their
Speaker 138
33:19
own checks in our city. That's why we only have three people that sign checks right now. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Questions by the committee?
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
33:34
Yes, sir. Thank you, Senator Mark. Ma'am, let me ask you this.
This has happened a lot of times in the past, and we'll send this back to the prosecuting attorney, and it doesn't go anywhere. I mean,
but... Tim, if we can come up with something, a different avenue that we can
Speaker 61
33:56
take to recover that or maybe go to court over? Well,
Speaker 51
34:01
legislative audit, we're just a reporting body. We're not a prosecutor. We're not the prosecutor, and so the prosecutor has that responsibility to decide what to do on that.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
34:10
He's a little... Yes, sir, as far as I
know. And do you know, has this
Speaker 138
34:19
individual been charged with crime yet? Not that we know of. And we just got a new city attorney. He's sitting here with us. This is his first couple of months at this. And so whatever y'all can tell us to do, we'd like to do. Well, Mr. City Attorney, if
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
34:32
you have anything to add, we'd love to hear your testimony. But if you're not aware
of anything, then we'll... But if you do speak, we do need to go to the end of the table and introduce yourself for the record.
Caleb Conrad
Unverified
34:47
Good afternoon. My name is Caleb Conrad. I've been on the job for three weeks, and it's been interesting. I know that there is an ongoing investigation into the former employee by the AG's office, and the task is a large one, right, because not only do we have the things that you read, but, you know, they're matching up bank accounts and that type of thing. So I did talk with the investigators recently. I know that it's ongoing at this time.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
35:18
That's kind of the only other update I would have.
Okay, so I won't pin you down on anything since your long tenure in the office. Please don't. And the fact that it is being investigated by other
authorities. So we'll certainly let that work its way through the system. But thank you for coming forward and sharing that with us. And thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Ms.
Speaker 161
35:40
Wilson and Ms. Churchill on that. And do we have any, do
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
35:44
we need to find this? This is one that we would ask if without objection of the committee we will file.
Senator Love, do you have a comment or question? I
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
35:53
do because Alexander actually is, part of it is my city. I'm going to claim the good part.
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
36:00
It straddles the line. I know. Yes, sir. Go ahead. Senator Love, real quick. I'm not sure I'm going to make any more motions for you today. So just know
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
36:11
that going into whatever you're about to go to. So, the only thing I want to ask is that, to the treasurer, what are the safeguards that you all have put in place in regards to, like, the signature stamps?
We no longer have signature stamps. Okay, you no longer have? Oh, okay. All right. Well, that's, I mean, because usually when a city comes up, I'm going to always ask you kind of what safeguard measures have you put in place to ensure that that does
Speaker 138
36:43
it? We have three people, this lady, me, and our recorder, that are all retired, that are the check signers and can get into the bank. That's why we want to keep it that way
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
36:55
so that our banks are safe from now on in our reports.
That's what I needed. Thank you, ma'am.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
37:01
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Senator. Any other questions for
Ms. Wilson or Ms. Churchill? Okay, the chair will entertain a motion to file by Representative Dalby. Is
there a second? Do we need a second? Don't need a second? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Okay, it's filed. Thank you. Thank you, ladies, for coming. We'll allow this case to work through the legal system. Thank you. Do we go to these for prosecution?
Sure. Okay. We'll move now to reports referred to the prosecuting attorney. Mr. Jones will describe
Speaker 51
37:41
those. All right. The next report is the City of Forest City for the year 2021, beginning on page two. It's all on page two. Our review of an employee's payroll records revealed that insurance premiums were withheld from wages totaling $1,868 for one employee's insurance coverage for periods January 20th through June 2022.
but for whom coverage was not received during that time. Due to the lack of reconciliation between insurance remittance forms and payroll records, this error was not detected by city personnel. After this was brought to the city's attention, a reimbursement was issued on July 1, 2022. Withholdings from other employees' wages were likely incorrect as well by varying amounts. We recommend the city determine the full amount of any under or overpayments and seek legal guidance to resolve these issues.
A similar finding was issued in the previous report. The city allowed two of five employees tested to take vacation leave of 75 hours and 33 hours respectively before the leave was earned. This arrangement appears to conflict with Arkansas Constitution Article 12, Section 5, which prohibits cities from loaning their credit to an individual. The city did not always collect retiree insurance premiums prior to the month for which the coverage was effective in conflict with Arkansas Constitution, Article 12, Section 5.
In addition, due to the lack of proper record-keeping, we were unable to determine if two retirees paid the full amount owed to the city for the year ending December 31, 2021. Clerk-Treasurer Doreen Cochran
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
39:18
is here to answer questions. Are you Ms. Cochran? Would you please
turn on your mic and just identify yourself for the record?
Speaker 177
39:33
I am Doreen Cochran, City Clerk Treasurer for the City of Fort City.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
39:38
Okay. Thank you, Ms. Cochran. Will you respond to the audit information as Mr. Jones just read?
Okay. Where do you want me to start? Wherever
Speaker 177
39:54
you'd like, ma'am. At the beginning, of course. Okay. The insurance, it was held from that employee's check. She called in to the insurance company. It was a supplemental insurance company and counseled her insurance unbeknown to me.
And on the payroll, there are several people with the last name. So it was an oversight. And like you said, it was refunded back to her. So we're kind of watching supplemental. We have quite a few of those policies, so we're actually really watching those. So we shouldn't have that problem again with that. Okay, the vacation part, it was only one person that was paid prior to earning the
vacation, which that employee had been with the city for 20 years. He had a sixth son and a spouse and he needed gas. It was during the wintertime and it was only a few weeks prior to him earning that vacation. So I spoke with the mayor and he said he thought it would be okay. So that's what I did. I paid the vacation in advance. So, but that won't happen again. And the retiree's
insurance, we have a way to keep up with it. We've done spreadsheets and we let the retired employees know that if they're not in before the insurance is due or to be paid, then they will be council. So all of that has been taken care of. Okay. Thank you
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
41:36
for that. Any questions for Ms. Cochran? Representative Brown.
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
41:44
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ms. Cochran, so the employees
have to, they have to manually, like every month or quarter, how often do they have to pay their premium? And then my follow-up to that is would it be possible just to deduct that premium
from their retirement checks so that this oversight doesn't happen? No, I don't think we could
Speaker 183
42:03
take it from the retirement checks. It's something that they would have to take care of.
Speaker 177
42:09
And the premium costs so much, they can only afford to pay it once a month. So they have to come in and pay it if they want to keep the city's insurance. They have to
pay the whole amount of the premium. The city doesn't pay any portion of it.
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
42:25
But they bring the premium payment to the office instead of sending it to the insurance company? Yes. They're part
Speaker 177
42:32
of our policy, so they have to give it to us, and then I'll pay the insurance when I pay all the other employees' insurance. Thank you. Thank
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
42:45
you, Representative Brown. Other questions for Ms. Cochran?
Okay. No more objections. Without objection,
we'll say it'll be filed. Next, we're skipping over some that do not have people here. We'll next
Speaker 51
43:13
you. It's right here. Mr. Jones? Town of Gilmore begins on page 6 for the year 2021. The report shows the general fund deficit balance of $1,916.
In addition, it was brought to our attention that as of December 31st, 2021, the general fund owed significant amounts for balances due to the street and fire and equipment training funds. When these outstanding amounts were considered, the general fund had a deficit balance of $17,774. A similar finding was noted in the previous two reports. The general fund disbursements exceeded budget appropriations by $34,000 in noncompliance with code.
A similar finding was noted in the previous report. The recorder treasurer, who is also the payroll preparer, received salary payments and reimbursements of $5,958 without adequate supporting documentation in noncompliance with code. Therefore, we were unable to determine the propriety of these payments. Bank reconciliations were not approved by a municipal official or employee other than the person preparing the reconciliation in noncompliance with code. A similar finding was noted in the previous five reports.
The General Fund Cash Receipts Journal was not properly classified in noncompliance with code. A similar finding was noted in the previous five reports dating back to 2016. While performing disbursements procedures, we noted the following. Adequate supporting documentation was not provided for tested disbursements of $4,334 in noncompliance with code. Invoices did not always indicate authorization for payment. A similar finding was noted in the previous two reports. Continuing on the next page, the following issues were noted while reviewing payroll records.
The town did not report all employee compensation on IRS Form W-2. A payroll journal was not provided for those employees whose salaries were not processed using paychecks. In addition, for those employees, it appeared that federal and state taxes were not withheld and remitted. A similar finding was noted in the previous six reports. The Treasurer did not submit monthly financial reports to the Council in noncompliance with the Code. Unallowable expenditures from previous years of $4,056 paid from the Fire and Equipment Training Fund were not repaid.
A similar finding was noted in the previous five reports. Property taxes of $788 and state aid of $11,014 for highway funds in previous years owed the street fund were not transferred during the engagement period as required by code. The total amount due to the street fund at December 31st, 2021 was $11,802. A similar finding was noted in the previous 12 reports. Mayor Bruce Delaney and Recorder Treasurer Laniece Elmore are here to answer questions.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
46:13
Mayor Delaney and Ms. Elmore, would you all like to introduce yourself for the record
and respond to the audit report? Yes, my name is Mayor Bruce Delaney
Mayor Bruce
Unverified
46:24
from the City of Gilmore. And my name is
Laniece Elmore
Unverified
46:29
Laniece Elmore from the City Recorder from Gilmore. Okay. Thank you.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
46:33
Mayor, would you like to respond? Yes. On our
Speaker 198
46:39
street, turn back money, you know, when I first became to be mayor, you know, they had owed from back then before I became to be mayor.
But we did come up with agreement and everything, you know, to pay back 10%, you know, to try to get this money paid back. And that's what I'm working on now, to try to get this money paid back. You know, we're a small town. You know, we don't get very much turn-back money. And we only can do, you know, what we can do with our turn-back money. And, you know, we are losing peoples out of town. And like now, we have lost more people. Our account, forgive them, went down, and it made us, you know, get less money.
So I had talked to the council members and everything, and we are looking for a solution to go and pay back, you know, 10% to try to get the street paid back. Are y'all
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
47:38
currently paying that 10% back, Mayor? Yes, sir. How much is
Speaker 198
47:44
that total? It's about $100 every month. We
Laniece Elmore
Unverified
47:46
were paying like 10% a year, so that would be like $100 every month. About $100 a month, okay. But, you know, what we're
Speaker 198
47:54
going to try to do, you know,
is try to pay a little bit more than $100 because I want to try to go and get this issue solved. And, you know, that way we can be on the
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
48:10
right track, you know, with our streets. At this point, we're looking at a deficit balance in your general
fund of $17,000 plus, and that goes back to 2019. How are y'all dealing with that? That sounds like you've got a negative balance in your account.
In a street account? No, that's in your general fund. General fund. Oh, that's after consideration of what they match you owe. Okay. I understand. Any questions for Mayor Delaney
or Ms. Elmore from the committee? Mayor, you've got a
Speaker 198
48:53
lot of work to do. How long have you been mayor? I've been
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
48:57
mayor since 2015. Okay, so about eight years then.
Yes, sir. Well, you've got a lot of work to do. Is there any other questions for the committee? If not, would that objection be filed? Thank you, Mayor.
Ms. Gilmore. Next, we'll go down to the city of Grady. We
have officials from Grady here. Yes, sir. Please come to the end of the table.
Speaker 51
49:34
Okay. City of Grady for the year 2021. An audit or agreed upon procedures report has not been obtained for the Grady Water and Sewer System for the years 2020, 2019, and 2018. Similar finding was issued in previous reports. Fines and cost revenue of $470,000 exceeded 30% of the city's total expenditures in the preceding year by $284,000 in noncompliance with code. This revenue was generated from traffic offense citations written or arrests made by the city's law enforcement personnel or from ancillary actions related to the enforcement of traffic offenses.
And that finding is a result of the speed trap law. We have to send this finding to the prosecuting attorney for the prosecutor to determine whether the city is a speed trap. This is merely a calculation that we're required to do. But Mayor Charles Knight is here to answer questions. Mayor
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
50:35
Knight, please identify yourself for the record. Charles Knight, Mayor, City of Grady. Okay. You heard what Mr. Jones said about the speed trap law.
Are you familiar with that? Very familiar. Okay. And
I'm not saying we want people to drive fast through Grady, but there's also a limit, and it's a presumption under state law, that if your revenues exceed the 30% that you're speed trapping. What have you all done to fix
that, I guess I should ask? Well,
Speaker 225
51:06
it's kind of difficult. If you'd allow me to just speak for a second about this. Of course, sir. That's why you're here. All right. Well, when you're a small city like Grady
and you don't have a lot of business, it's not very hard to exceed that 30%. You don't mind if I move this, do you? No, sir. It's not very hard to exceed that 30%. You know, there's also some other criteria in the speed trap law about tickets written under 10 over need for law enforcement, things of that nature. And so we fell into this category under one category of multiple, and that's the 30% expenditures. Now, that sounds like a lot of money.
I get that. But, you know, and excuse my address, I actually got this letter that I had to be here at about 11 o'clock today, so I didn't have time to go even get my paperwork. No problem, sir. But this pretty much averages out, you know, we are 24-hour day, seven-day law enforcement agency. We're not just there on the weekends or in the evenings, things of that nature. And what this basically boils down to is actually less than three tickets per shift.
Now, if I wrote one ticket to shift or if the officers wrote one ticket to shift, we would still be non-compliant on the 30% expenditure versus revenue rules simply because we don't have any other sources of funding, really. We don't have large stores. When the state ran the highway around Grady instead of through town, that pretty much killed all our businesses, most of our comers in town. But we still try to maintain and provide adequate law enforcement. In Lincoln County, we cover over 400 square miles.
I've worked deputy. I've worked state law enforcement, all this, and so I kind of know these numbers. And they had three deputies covering 400 square miles. And so every small city there, everybody kind of peeing together to try to work together and make this thing happen down there. And, you know, in courses, 50, 60 miles between Pine Bluff and Dumas, you'd be surprised at how many times we've gotten assisted to state different things of that nature. So I don't want people to think
because it was such a stigma when I came to Grady 16 years ago that Grady is a speed trap. Well, to the point I sat down with the district judge, prosecuted everybody when I came there and said, hey, let's talk about this. Let's talk about what's fair. We hadn't written a ticket in Grady under 13 over in 16 years, which means you're running pretty much 80 miles an hour, and you probably know you're speeding when you're running 80 miles an hour through there. But this basically comes down to, I've done the calculations sitting back here, and to
my point, I know we're in violation of the 30% rule, but that basically comes down to about $14 an hour that we're generating and that we're able to keep, because we're only keeping a little over 30 percent of this revenue. Most of it goes back to the state. Most of it goes to the county. It don't even pay one officer. And so this money is not necessarily funding the city as, you know, it appears. It ain't even funding the police department. We're begging the state
police. We're begging the highway police to work in our area. Part of this money comes from those entities as well, turning in tickets to our agency. Just trying to maintain a police department, just to be honest with you. Because without one, then of course my community won't be served either. And so I'm definitely in violation. I found this out not because I was doing the calculations. I found this out when And the auditors told me mid-year 21, which naturally I would already be in violation for 22.
And so it's kind of now, of course, we've cut back, but we cut back because we've lost officers. I'll just be blunt with it. And, you know, our enforcement practices, you know, 13 over, we got officers in the city. We got officers sometimes circling back and forth through the highway. You know, like I say, we hadn't written a ticket over under 13 over in 16 years. And we definitely have a need for the law enforcement.
Every month we write several tickets over 100 miles an hour. You know, every month we're assisting with accidents on Highway 65. That's a major route through there. We make many drug stops. We're just not a ticket-writing agency. We're a real law enforcement agency, and, you know, we operate that way. And so I understand that this has to go to the prosecutor. I understand all the parameters and the way that we've cut back because it's difficult to ask an officer not to do his job.
I've been one for over 20 years, and so I can't write this gentleman a ticket for doing 21 over and then catch him doing 26 over and let him go. Or this gentleman I write a DWI, and this gentleman I cut him a break. I have to be a law enforcement agency, and I have to be fair with everybody. And so we tried to do that by steadily increasing at what point will you write this ticket if you encounter this person. and so but yes to my point i do understand that i'm over on the 30 percent and we are working on
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
56:52
that mayor i appreciate that and i know where you are i know where highway 65 is and i know it's a it's
a major thoroughfare this is not a little two-lane road through town this is a serious highway i know
that uh we passed a bill this last session that had to do with calculating what the fines were and I had a
community formerly in my district and we found that there was a high percentage, I don't want to use these numbers, they're not accurate, but they'll serve as an
example. Let's say the fine for a particular speeding violation was $100 and someone fails to appear so it goes to $180 and then they don't show up at the next time and it goes, By the time you're looking at a $100 violation, it's $400 or $500 or more. Absolutely. Now, have you had that type of
Speaker 225
57:47
thing happen in your community? Well, everyone usually pay their tickets when they get income tax money. And so there's sometimes...
But they're paying a penalty over and above the original traffic fine. And usually several hundred dollars by the end because they didn't miscourt a couple times as well as the additional fees added to the penalty each month. Absolutely. And again, I'm
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
58:11
not defending you. I'm just simply looking
at numbers here. In the case of this community, I was aware of it, does not have an equivalent to Highway 65 going through it. They made the same point you made. People, when they got their income tax refund, they went and paid their fines.
Is that $470,265, would you give me a ballpark idea of how much of that was over and above the original stated fine for the offense? Approximately, I'm not holding you. Well, I could
probably give you a better percentage than an actual number. That's what I mean. Probably 65%. So basically over half of it.
Yeah, over half, yeah. Yeah, okay. All right.
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
58:59
Representative Dalby, you have a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Mayor, could you tell me what you did with that 30% that you kept? Because if I calculated that, it's well over $100,000, maybe $140,000. So how did the city spend that money? Because we're looking at this first finding that you were not able to get an audit or you didn't hire anybody to do the audit of your water and sewer system. So, I mean, that's a chunk of money, and there was no audit of the sewer system since 2018.
Yes, ma'am. So, my question is, you know, what were you doing with all that money if you weren't taking care of
Speaker 225
59:45
what the city needed to be doing? Thank you. Okay. Paying officers. You know, once again, we have a full-time police department, not a part-time. So we have eight officers that we have to pay. But to, I guess, jump back to the water audit since it came up, it's not the lack of that I can't pay for a water audit.
A water fund can pay for a water audit. It's the fact that I can't get anyone to do a water audit because I only have 120 meters. Back in 17, when Mr. Montgomery did the audit, we begged and begged and begged him to do it. He did the audit, and he returned it with a note, which I've supplied to the legislative audit. The next year, that stated he can't make enough money on 120 meters. Legislative audit then got involved and helped me with giving me the names of some other auditors.
I've contacted each and every one of them each year. And in doing so, they all tell me that they can't make enough money on a 120-meter audit. And they actually asked me, because I've been in contact with them again this year, and they said, well, when you go up there, would you please tell them to review that? Now, in my research prior to coming here, I found that the Division of Legislative Audit, I don't know how this ties with the local people, inform me that this is happening to a lot of smaller cities
that don't have that higher threshold of meters and that this is actually under review right now.
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
1:01:24
Paula? Yes, ma'am. Just one other question. If I understood, you have eight officers? Yes, ma'am. And for a city of your size, that's one officer per 38 people in your town. I mean, is that not? I wish my town had one officer per 38
citizens. That seems to be a little skewed. Just my observation.
Speaker 225
1:01:48
Yes, ma'am. Once again, my background is in law enforcement. Now, all these officers are not full-time officers, but I do have eight officers. And in order to have 24-hour days, seven-day law enforcement, that's about the minimum that you can have. Okay. Thank you, Mayor. Other questions for Mayor Knight? I'd like to ask
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:02:10
you a question. Co-Chair Wright. Yes, sir.
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
1:02:17
Sir, do you think you can get this down to 30% like the law says?
Speaker 225
1:02:24
Well, I've reduced my number of officers at this point. I think, to be honest, to actually do law enforcement, no. But if we're not going to enforce the law, yes. If I'm not going to ask the state police to put tickets in my jurisdiction, if I'm not going to ask, I literally ask them, hey, man, you're out working, can you work this area as well?
We do things of that nature among law enforcement. And if they can, they did, and if they don't, because they have to be in my jurisdiction to run tickets through my court. But once again, it's kind of hard to calculate that. To the chair's point, a lot of people take $155 speed and citation, and by the time they pay it as well, over $600, $700, which the city didn't really have anything to do with that part of it. And I'm calculating it now, of course, at $155,
not at $670 when they got income taxed and decided to pay it. So it's kind of difficult
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:03:39
to do. Mayor, the bill I was referring to that recalculates that formula of what counts toward that 30% is Act 520 of 2023. And if you look over your left shoulder, you'll see Senator Jack Critcher, who is with the Municipal League. He's a former senator, and he's a real smart guy.
And he has access to all those other smart people at the Municipal League. I would suggest that maybe y'all get with him over this Act 520 and see if that might mitigate your calculation. And I'm not sure that it would. And, again, you've got a major highway that in many parts of the state would normally be a freeway, but it's still a major thoroughfare. And when you tell me you've got a lot of people going over 100 miles an hour, I believe you, absolutely. I've driven that road and was probably a little over the limit myself,
and somebody blew my doors off. So I know exactly what you're speaking of. But if you would take a look at that, it might be something that would help you be in compliance about having to lay off officers. But this was a law we passed for a reason, and we have to get our communities to comply with it. And I think that Representative Dalby's comments of it, well, where's the other money going? Your biggest need is law enforcement, and I understand that. So we'll try to do everything we can to get you in compliance.
But at this point, is there any objection? Hold on. Representative Frye.
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
1:05:10
Co-chair, Ryde. Thank you, Senator Johnson. Sorry to me ask this. Being in a situation that you guys are in, is there any way that the county police could help you to
Speaker 240
1:05:21
a certain degree with a part of that area? No, sir. Right
Speaker 225
1:05:27
now, the county actually has to include the sheriff and the chief deputy. He has four officers. And we all know each other in those areas and communicate.
And he's covering 400 square miles. Right now, he's working each one of his officers 16 hours a day. And so it's just pretty much impossible for him to help me out at all.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:05:52
As a matter of fact, I help
him out. Okay. Other questions for Mayor Knight? If not, without objection, then we'll file this report.
Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Okay, we'll move down on page 12.
Speaker 50
1:06:12
Phillips County. Okay, Phillips County for the year 2021. A review of
Speaker 51
1:06:21
county expenditures revealed the county paid $1,208 in excess of the approved contract for janitorial services. A similar finding was noted in the previous two reports. The county disbursed funds totaling $9,788 to the Phillips County Ambulance Association without a contract in apparent conflict with the Arkansas Constitution Article 12, Section 9,
as interpreted by Attorney General, Opinion 92-99. Continuing on page 13, All payroll checks were issued before the corresponding two-week pay period was completed in non-compliance with Arkansas Constitution Article 12, Section 5. Additionally, timesheets or payroll recaps were submitted to the county clerk's office multiple days prior to the end of the pay period. continuing on page 14 a checking account with a report balance report date balance of 1.1 million
dollars was established for the operation of the phillips county detention center but it was not properly maintained by the county treasurer as required by code a similar finding was issued in the previous report okay and on page 16 for the tax collector bank reconciliations were not prepared or not properly prepared specifically the December reconciliation for the current tax account did not contain cash on hand of $65,000 and outstanding checks of almost $9,000 in
non-compliance with code. A similar finding was issued in the previous three reports dating back to 2018. County Judge Clark Hall is here to answer questions. We did receive word from tax collector neil bird who's also the sheriff his assistant uh sharon martin called me on monday and mr bird had been hit by a car recently and he wasn't seriously injured but he's very sore and you didn't uh file a report he would ask for his uh a deferral to next meeting for his uh attendance
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:08:25
judge hall we're going to recognize you and we'll other gentlemen we'll deal with that in a moment But I want to go ahead and recognize you and welcome, for those of you who don't know, Judge Hall is a former legislator,
Speaker 247
1:08:43
so he knows the ropes. So you're recognized. Judge, you'll introduce yourself for the record. Thank you, Senator. Clark
Speaker 248
1:08:51
Hall, Phillips County, Arkansas. I recognize. We can go over these findings.
The $1,208 has been resolved. There is a new ordinance that establishes this. It's passed by the Quorum Court. It is – we never could really figure it out, but we got it straightened out with auditor's request after they told us about it. We have a new ordinance that will take care of that. On
Speaker 247
1:09:15
page – let's see, that's the first one. Second one, I guess, would be – page 13 is the second part.
That's fine. Page 13. Which one is this?
Speaker 248
1:09:32
It's a commissary issue, an inmate payroll counts. That was an issue in which neither the sheriff nor the treasurer wanted
Speaker 247
1:09:41
to handle their count. Hold just a moment, Judge. Yes, sir. This is going to be
Speaker 250
1:09:48
someone's responsibility, but it had to be where it was. Okay. On the top
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:09:56
of page 13, Judge, that's the one that's being sent to the prosecuting attorney on the timesheet issue and the payroll check.
Speaker 248
1:10:05
So I just wanted to point that out. Well, that was the county clerk's finding. I was looking just at mine, Senator. You go right ahead. I assume the county clerk would be here to
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:10:21
answer those questions. That's my understanding. She was not advised. Okay, she was not invited, according to staff. Sir? She was
Speaker 248
1:10:30
not invited, according to staff. Well, we have three new elected officials, and this office is a newly elected county clerk,
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:10:36
a new treasurer, and a... I presume it's the old one that
Speaker 248
1:10:44
was not invited. Absolutely. Thank you. Yes, sir. The county clerk is new. As far as part of the bank regulation of the issues on findings with the county judge, treasurer and sheriff's office, that has to do with the setting up the commissary and
a new jail, new detention center. It was supposed to be under the purview of the county sheriff. The county sheriff was reluctant, had never dealt with an inmate or a jail before, was reluctant to do it the treasurer didn't know how to do it and we had but we had a commissary contract and they were serving us and i paid it out of county general with the street keep from getting sued and from knowing full well i would be down here explaining that to y'all it has been corrected the auditors after the auditors got here to finally explain to the
sheriff's department that they are responsible it has been turned over to the sheriff's office However, the outstanding balance of about $138,000 should be resubmitted back to the county general for our expense, out-of-pocket expenses. The county treasurer is trying to get that money out of the sheriff who has control of that account now. And it
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:12:05
says that the sheriff, who is the proper custodian of these funds, has accepted it.
He's taken it over now. He's taken it over. He's figured out
Speaker 247
1:12:15
what to do, right? After your auditor has finally explained it to him that it was
Speaker 253
1:12:21
his responsibility, yes. Hopefully we did some
Speaker 248
1:12:25
good on that, Judge. We understand. The only other thing, on my part, it has to do with the ambulance service. I have tried for three years to get a meeting with all the city mayors to sign a new agreement.
getting them is like pulling teeth I gave up on that and I have a stand alone contract when the county and the ambulance service for the residents, the rural residents of Phillips County and each of the cities are standing on their own and my understanding that contract has been signed by all parties and filed in the county clerk's office as required by state statute now I cannot speak for the cities.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:13:14
Nor would I ask you to. We used to make you speak for Marvel, but you don't have to do that anymore.
Speaker 248
1:13:21
Well, thank God. However, you know, Senator, I'm in my 38th year of elected positions down in, so I've been down here a lot of times. On both sides of the bar, I know. Well, you know, way it goes. Thank you for your service. Thank you all for having me. And let me tell you all, this committee and the public,
auditors are an essential part of good government. And I appreciate the auditor staff for helping Phillips County because we have gone through the last six months. I've had to remove a treasurer from office by a circuit court order. I've had five treasurers in six years. uh i've been down here explaining that to this committee in the past two years but without auditors i would not be able to function
excuse me i would not be able to function uh my county and we are making progress but y'all most of y'all who've been here long enough and old hands know that we've had a we were in a difficult position so I want y'all to be aware that we do appreciate the staff audit staff for helping us we do not see them as our enemy we see them as a partner in making our community better so thank y'all for having us well
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:14:49
thank you judge I know the staff appreciates that
and those of us on the committee agree with you and recognize that this is an important function so and we'll continue to work with you to do that
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
1:15:04
is there any questions for judge hall Co-Chair Wright. Yes, sir. Judge Hall, on page 14, sir, it mentions a $1.152837, a little over a million dollars, was established for the operation of the Phillips County Detention Center, but it was not properly maintained by the county treasurer.
Did they lose money? No, they did not. what happened no sure they
Speaker 247
1:15:36
the the treasurer one of the treasurers I think my third or
Speaker 248
1:15:42
fourth one set up the accounts and and it got removed or left office resigned from office a new treasurer came in is just not knowing the procedure is the proper what's going on we assumed that
The treasurer was taking care of the books. We were getting the report from the banking institution that it was housed in and the secretary of state, the state treasurer. And we assumed it was being taken care of, and it was until it was brought to our attention that the books keeping were not being done properly. We didn't have a clue. Again, thanks to auditors, we found out that that was not taking place.
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
1:16:31
Judge Clark, do you think there's a good chance that this new treasurer could have maybe placed the money
or working the budgets into
a wrong line item or something like that, sir?
Speaker 248
1:16:43
Well, I will say this. In my 38 years of feeling in this business, I have the best corn court Phillips County has had in 20 years. i have a treasurer now who actually is trying to learn the proper mechanics of managing
governmental accounting which as y'all know is certainly different than business or other accounting process and it's uh but she's learning and i think it will benefit the county as we go forward because she's open to asking questions and learning what her process is and what she's supposed to do. So I feel comfortable about that. The county, as y'all will find out, because I will be back next year to explain why the county treasurer did not disburse $2.5 million of money
that we have found out due to the treasurer. We had no idea until it was reported to us. I will be back next year, I'm sure, to explain that. I have recovered about $1.9 million of it, so I'm just short a few thousand, and I'll have that resolved before the end of the year.
So, at the end of the day, Phillips County is a lot better off than it was seven years ago. We're in the black. We make mistakes like every entity, but thanks to your auditors, they keep us fairly floating on the same path down to prosperity. Thank you, Mr. Representative.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:18:51
Thank you, Judge. Co-Chair Ryan, any more questions for the judge? Members of the
committee, any questions for Judge Hall? If not, without objection, we'll file
the report. Thank you, Judge. We look forward to you finding that other $600,000, and we'll
Speaker 261
1:19:11
get it all straight. I'm hoping a donation
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:19:14
from your pack. You're going to be out of luck on that
one, my friend. and now we'll City of Carlisle
Speaker 51
1:19:23
Mayor Glover next will be the City of Carlisle for the year 2021 beginning on page 17 Arkansas code requires city management to maintain financial records the financial records contain omissions and errors that are considered material as specified as follows the general fund financial records contain misstatements in various financial statement line items in amounts ranging from $147,000 to $1.6 million due to posting errors and unrecorded transactions. The street fund
financial records contain misstatements in various financial statement line items ranging from $11,000 to $170,000 due to posting errors and unrecorded transactions. The other funds in the aggregate financial records contain misstatements in various financial statement line items in amounts ranging from $3,600 to $830,000 due to posting errors and unrecorded transactions. A similar finding was noted in the previous three reports dating back to 2018. Office of Management and Budget Circular A-133 requires city management to obtain a federal compliance audit when federal expenditures exceed $750,000.
The city had federal expenditures in excess of $750,000 in 2017 and did not obtain a federal compliance audit. A similar finding was noted in the previous three reports. The city has not obtained an audit or agreed upon procedure report for the city's water and sewer system since 2016, as required by code, and a similar finding was noted in the previous report. Management has no process to review and approve journal entries. Sales taxes of $24,271 were not transferred from the general fund to the street fund in noncompliance with Carlyle Resolution No. 309.
A similar finding was in the previous report. Continuing on page 18, accounting procedures for municipalities are set forth in the Arkansas Code. The city was not in compliance with these codes and other accounting procedures as follows. Bank reconciliations were not approved by someone other than the preparer, nor prepared in a timely manner. Cash receipts journals were not properly maintained to include all receipts and were not reconciled to total bank deposits. Cash disbursements journals were not properly maintained to include all disbursements and were not reconciled to total bank disbursements.
Prenumbered receipts were not issued for all funds. The annual financial statement was not published by April 1 of the following year. A similar finding was issued in the previous three reports. Mayor Ray Glover is here to answer questions. Welcome, Mayor. Your late brother was
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:22:11
one of my dearest friends, and I miss him. I know you do. And I know the kind of folks you are
down there, and I understand you've had a, shall we say, a personnel problem in Carlisle.
And I want, if you'll introduce this lady there, I assume you're, are you the new treasurer, ma'am? Yes,
sir. Your name, ma'am? Trudy Dry. I'm sorry, ma'am, your last name? Dry, D-R-Y-E. Okay. Ms. Dry, if you just introduced yourself, Mayor, if you'll introduce yourself
Speaker 265
1:22:48
for the record, you can proceed. Say your name. Okay, I'm Ray Glover, Mayor of Carlisle, and I'm here with City Treasurer Trudy Drye and my State Senator Ron Caldwell.
Well, we're Senator Caldwell. We've been asked to be here to discuss our audit. Let me say right off the jump start that Trudy has been working very hard on our books, and we feel we will be in compliance on the next audit. Our problem with the fraud you mentioned will be turned over to the authorities and we'll be in court next month, June the 9th, which happens to be my birthday
and also happens to be my 50th anniversary, wedding anniversary. Could you
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:23:37
get the judge to give you a continuance, Mayor? I would certainly ask for one of my wife, I can assure
Speaker 268
1:23:44
you. We've had plenty of those. Please proceed, Mayor.
Speaker 265
1:23:48
But anyway, we're doing the best we can as fast as we can. Yes, sir. Trudy had
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:23:54
a mess to clean up. Yes, sir. Mayor, let me first say that we have mistakes made in cities and we have in counties
and we have people that are trying but they don't really know how to do the job. And then we have fraud and downright thievery. And I understand that the latter has been the case in Carlisle. And I'm much more sympathetic to the job you're trying to do and, Ms. Dry, to try to clean up a mess than I have people that just kind of didn't do their job right, as opposed to this is what you are. The city is a victim of a crime in this case, and I realize everyone's innocent until proven guilty
and will let the system work out. But I want you to know we're grateful for the fact that you and Ms. Dreyer are, as you said,
cleaning up the mess. So any other comment either one of you would like to make on
Speaker 269
1:24:49
the details? I just appreciate those comments. We had an employee that really
Speaker 265
1:24:55
got us in trouble, and she's in trouble now.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:25:02
Well, we'll let the criminal justice system deal with that.
If I could, Mr. I, do you have procedures in place that will, going forward, have some checks and balances to make sure that some of these recurring problems don't arise again? Yes, sir. Which I was the clerk treasurer for 12 years, and then
Speaker 273
1:25:22
I left for about five years, and then that's when all of this happened, and he asked me to come back. I don't blame him. I'm used to, you know. I'm glad you're going to come back.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:25:37
I bet you did, Mayor. I would have, too. Please proceed, Mr. I'm sorry. That's okay.
Speaker 273
1:25:42
So we're working on, I think the general fund is the main one I'm still working on, trying to get it balanced and up to date. But everything else is pretty much, you know, caught up, I think. So we should be in
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:25:58
good shape by the time. How long were you clerk treasurer before you temporarily retired, shall
we say? 12 years, okay, so one could say you do know the job. I'm confident about that
Any questions by the committee for the mayor or miss dry? Okay,
well first of all we will be monitoring the the prosecution I'm
sorry. They're messing up your birthday your anniversary mayor but we'll we'll be watching and keep up with that and staff will keep us informed and and I'm grateful that you have a person that you can depend on to come back and take the job and help get things straightened out because I can tell you, we have communities come before this committee
that don't have someone in a position to do that, and you can imagine the ongoing problems that that can cause. So we're sympathetic for what you're doing, and we're grateful that you have someone dependable that you can come back and do that. Any other questions? If not, we'll file the
Speaker 269
1:27:01
report. I appreciate y'all being so nice to us, and I appreciate my state's senator, Ron Caldwell. Well, you've got
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:27:08
a good one, and not just that. He's like me. He was a
friend of your late brother who was a senator,
and we know you're good folks over there that you're going to try to do right, and you had a bad apple in your midst, and it's being dealt with. So any assistance that legislative joint auditing committee staff can do to help y'all get through this, please let us know and we'll provide resources you need to make sure you can get out of that. And once again, I always recognize, you know, over your left shoulder is Senator Critcher, my other longtime friend and also a friend of your late brothers.
And he has the resources of the Municipal League that they can bring to bear to help get things back on track. We
appreciate it. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you very much. Senator Caldwell,
thank you all for coming. okay uh town of chidester
Speaker 51
1:28:12
we have someone from chidester here all right the next is city of chidester for the years 2021 and 2020 expenditures exceeded budget appropriations in 2020 for the street fund by 7500 dollars and in 2021 for the general
street funds by $31,000 and $6,900 respectively in non-compliance with code. A similar finding was noted in the previous four reports. An annual audit or agreed upon procedure report for the city's water and sewer system has not been completed since 2013 is required by code. A similar finding was
Speaker 279
1:28:48
noted in the prior two reports. Mayor Bobby Box Sr. is here to answer questions.
Speaker 281
1:28:56
Mayor Boxer, you're recognized. Thank you. Please introduce yourself for the record. My name is Bobby Boxer, mayor of Chippister, Arkansas. Been there for two terms, first term, 12 years, and I tried to get out of there, but they hauled me back in there. And I'm in there for another term, and I will sympathize with a lot of what was already said about the stuff with my audit. I was also dropped. We were also dropped because our population went down, our meters went down.
I was also, so the auditors who were doing our auditors, they called and said they couldn't no longer do ours either. And I was led to find one when I come back in 2007. and now our audits is now in the hand of Turner, Riggs, and Manor in Arcadelfia. So they've got all of our audits trying to get them back up to date, and they bring them in, so we're on the right path for that.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:30:05
So, Mayor, you've hired an outside accounting firm that's going to do the audit and get
Speaker 281
1:30:12
you back up to speed. Yes, sir. Okay. Yeah, they have all of our audit records now, and they're getting them back on track. So that has been taken care of. On these findings for the street and the general fund, we've taken care of that. We had to, we just didn't, well, on my last recorder,
she was a sickly girl, and she got sick for the last four or five years. She finally passed away. but some things that she wasn't recording inside of our minutes. But now we have one now who's really got it up to par and running and looking good. On our next audit, you probably will see the change that you've been looking for. We've been
Speaker 282
1:30:58
passing it every year, but it just wasn't getting in the minutes. You mean the council passed it
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:31:07
and it wasn't properly recorded in the minutes?
Right. As you know, that is the record whether y'all did something different or not. Now, Mayor, may I digress a moment? You know, we have a law now you have to record meetings. You do record your meetings, correct? Well, that gives you an extra margin of record that you can use to correct the minutes if they're not in there because you've got it recorded, so I just
Speaker 281
1:31:34
recommend that to you. Yeah, we're doing that now. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. We're on track down, so our 22nd minutes should reflect that.
Great. So everything is in order. Great. Any questions
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:31:47
from Mayor Box, from the committee? And I'm trying to get out of
Speaker 281
1:31:53
this thing again. Next time I go out, I think I'm going to move out of state somewhere. We
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:32:00
appreciate your service, Mayor. You know, in small towns, you get good folks that will come in and do the job, and it's getting
harder and harder to find. Everyone thinks it's glamorous. Those of us that work up here know that it's not, and it's a lot of hard work and dedication, and we appreciate your service.
Any other questions for Mayor Box? If not, without objection, we'll consider this will be filed. Thank you,
Speaker 287
1:32:23
sir. Thank you, Mayor. Can we go back
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:32:29
and bring Mayor Thomas back? Mayor Thomas, we're ready to bring you back. Now we've got to go
Speaker 51
1:32:36
back and deal with another issue. All right. Town of Haynes for the year 2021. Schedule 1 of this report shows a balance of $7,967,
but it was brought to our attention that as December 31, 2021, the general fund owed a significant amount for balances due to the street fund and to the IRS. When these outstanding amounts were considered, the general fund had a deficit balance of $31,904. Restricted funds of $19,123 noted in previous years were not transferred from the general to the street fund in noncompliance with code. Similar finding was noted in the previous five reports.
The bank accounts for the general sanitation and Act 33 fire equipment and training funds were not properly reconciled in noncompliance with code. A similar finding was noted in the previous three reports. Mayor O.C. Thomas is here to answer questions. Welcome back, Mayor Thomas. We'll let you
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:33:32
respond to this one now. Well, we're doing what we can
Speaker 40
1:33:36
to get back online and everything. So just, you know, when I taken this off, there was a lot of things that had happened, so I'm kind of new at this now.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:33:48
But we're working on it. We showed at the end of 2021 that y'all owed the IRS $20,748. dollars. What's the status of that now? I really don't have it.
Speaker 40
1:33:58
My clerk was supposed to be here today, but a car. Can you give us an estimate? Is it headed in the right direction? It's headed the right direction, but I can't give you. I hate to tell you one thing. I won't make you put you on
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:34:12
the record on the act. If you don't have her here, they'll give you that. But y'all are dealing with, because as you well know, the IRS doesn't mess around. We know. We're working with them.
Yes, sir. Okay. All right. Any other questions for Mayor Thomas? Okay. If
there's no other questions, then this will be filed. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Have a good day. Thank you for staying a little later. We didn't know how long this would take. Next,
we have Town of Jericho, Mr. Jones. Okay. Town of Jericho for the year 2021. It's on page 20.
Speaker 51
1:34:52
Although Schedule I of our report shows a balance of $41,000 in the general fund, it has brought to our attention that as of December 31, 2021, the general fund owed a significant amount to the street fund. When this amount was considered, the general fund had a deficit balance of $17,874. A similar finding was in the previous report. Property taxes restricted for street purposes of $393 were not transferred from the general fund to the street fund. It was required by code. Also, restricted funds of $58,597 noted in previous years were not transferred, resulting in $58,990 due from the general fund to the street fund.
The governing body determined $50 a month would be remitted to the street fund for amounts owed. However, this payment schedule was not followed. A similar finding was noted in the previous report. Mayor Idis Schumpert is here to answer questions. Recorder Treasurer Lane Dupree is a teacher. She called, and so she couldn't be here today because she is teaching. Okay. Are you Mayor Schubert?
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:36:02
Yes. And I assume this is Chief on your right, your left, my right.
Yes, sir. Would you both
Speaker 177
1:36:13
please introduce yourselves for the record? Okay.
Speaker 295
1:36:21
Hall. I'm Roy Hill, Chief of Police for
Speaker 296
1:36:27
Jericho. Okay. You are recognized. First, I want
Speaker 298
1:36:33
to apologize for being here today. But for the $41,000, okay, we got some COVID money,
and all our money had fell in the bank during that time and we hadn't paid any bills. So that's why we had the $41,000 in the bank. And since then, I have put $500 into the street fund money and I will be paying the money that we have agreed to pay to the street fund every month. But that bill occurred way before I became mayor.
And we do owe a lot of money, but that's going to be my main objective, to pay that bill every month, regardless to what our situation is. We're going to pay that bill every month. We just had some problems, some bills that we had a lot of bills from our proud mayor. So but we're getting them down so we'll be able to pay that that uh that bill that we had
Speaker 300
1:37:41
and then for the recorder that uh I'm gonna make sure that she put that money into the account when
we get that money from the uh our turn back money that make sure that she uh put that money in the bank that we get for the uh that she supposed to put into the street fund and that will be done too so again I apologize for that not being done but we're gonna
Speaker 298
1:38:11
make sure that they'd be done and yes all I can
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:38:17
say is that we're gonna make sure that they'd be done yes ma'am I don't know if you were here earlier when we discussed the 10% of revenue
general revenue going to pay back these erroneously admitted
where you weren't putting it in the right fund, from general fund to street fund. $50 a month is on $58,000, almost $59,000. Mayor, it's a lot of money. And I hate to use the term drop in the bucket because I know y'all are $50 on your budget. A town of less than $100 is a lot of money. But you've got to agree with me that that's quite a disparity. Yeah, but we
Speaker 300
1:38:58
don't get less than $1,000 turnback money a month, you know, but I know that $50
Speaker 298
1:39:04
is not a lot of money, but when you don't get a lot of money, that's really not a lot of money.
But, like, we're going to do the best that we can do, you know. Yes, ma'am. And we're trying to do the best that we can do when, you know. So I put $500 in the bank that we had some extra money, so
Speaker 300
1:39:30
I put the $500 in the street fund from the general fund. Did
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:39:35
you document that, Mayor? Because as far as I'm concerned, if you put a $500, that's 10 monthly
payments on this. Have you properly documented that?
Yes. Good. Good. Okay. Yes, I did. All righty.
Speaker 300
1:39:45
That was eight months for eight months because we put $50 in there. so we put $500 in there. Yes, ma'am. So I just want to
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:39:55
make sure you got credit for that. Yeah, we
Speaker 300
1:39:57
put it in there. We put it in the street farm.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:40:00
Representative Fyre has a question for you, Mike. Thank you,
Speaker 54
1:40:09
Mr. Chair. This is a staff. Does the city of Jericho fall under, in this audit, does it fall under Act 709 of 2021?
Speaker 65
1:40:19
Would they have not had needed to pass
Speaker 51
1:40:23
an ordinance? They should by the end of, yes, by the end of 2022. This audit was done, you know, it was
Speaker 308
1:40:30
a 2021 engagement. I think we probably finished it before. We may have finished it before the year-end. Let me look.
Speaker 51
1:40:41
What's that? Okay. After November 14th, they haven't had an ordinance. So they haven't passed an ordinance yet.
And so we'd be in the 2022 engagement, we would
Speaker 308
1:40:51
note that because they wouldn't have done it by the end of the
Speaker 306
1:40:58
year. Okay. So there is no need to pass an ordinance? No,
Speaker 51
1:41:03
they have to pass an ordinance. What I'm saying is we've only done a report through the end of 2021 and 2022.
Speaker 65
1:41:10
The reason I say that is that it says
Speaker 54
1:41:14
that it was the previous year this was reported also.
so that they did not make the payment am
Speaker 308
1:41:20
i correct that is correct in 2021 they didn't sounds like they may have in 2022 until
Speaker 54
1:41:25
they go through the process of either making the ordinance or coming before us to approve it then any payment they make or anything not binding in any way no sir okay thank
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
1:41:44
you other questions co-chair right yes ma'am ma'am i may have missed something i just had to step out
but how much do you all plan on trying to
Speaker 310
1:41:52
pay each month on that on on that straight money to repay that back
Speaker 300
1:41:59
if we uh when we did it it was 50 there was the prior mayor
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
1:42:15
how much is it a year? $600.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:42:19
And she paid $500 lump sum at one
time. Is that correct, Mayor? It's $600 a year, but you paid $500, which covers eight months. Yeah. Ten months, actually. You may have had two behind or something. All right, okay. Thank
you. Any other questions for the mayor or the chief? You're
giving me that look, Representative Brown. You've got a question. You're recognized.
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
1:42:47
Well, I just have a concern for this community.
Are they going to have the ability to dig themselves out of this? Do they have enough population? Do they have the revenue? it's just another one of those things where our procedure might come in that we're waiting on I'll give
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:43:09
the mayor and the chief an opportunity to try to answer that I don't know there's ultimately an answer but mayor would you like to respond to representative Brown's question yeah
Speaker 300
1:43:18
when we we're going to be able to pay the $50 each month
we had some trouble because like our proud mayor left us with a lot of bills that when we came, we had a lot of debt
Speaker 298
1:43:32
that we were left with. So we've been trying to pay that, but we're getting some more revenue coming in from different places. So we'll be able to pay the $50. Yeah. Okay. Well, I think I'm not speaking for
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:43:49
you, Representative Brown, but you're going beyond just the $50 going back to the street fund, are you not?
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
1:43:56
Well, I am. It just seems like you've got a crushing amount of debt for the amount of revenue you have coming in. I'm just asking, do you have enough revenue to cover
Speaker 304
1:44:11
all this? Well, do we need more revenue? Yeah, we need more
Speaker 298
1:44:17
revenue, but we're doing different stuff to get more revenue in. And
Speaker 304
1:44:22
so we're maintaining thus far. That's all I can say.
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
1:44:27
Yeah, we've maintained and does for it. Well, I want you to know I appreciate your effort. I just wonder if this is
Speaker 171
1:44:38
going to be possible for you. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Other questions? Johnny, anything? No,
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:44:47
sir. Okay. And without objection, the report will be filed.
Speaker 126
1:44:57
Okay. Next is the City of Turrell. Someone from Turrell will
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:45:03
come forward. All right. City of Turrell for the year
Speaker 51
1:45:13
2021. Although Schedule I of this report shows a general fund balance of $124,000, It was brought to our attention that as of December 31st, 2021, 72% of the general fund ending balance was restricted for Act 833 Fire Department expenditures, leaving net unrestricted cash of $35,000.
In addition, general fund owed a significant amount to the street fund. When these outstanding amounts were considered, the general fund had a deficit unrestricted balance of $217,000. A similar finding was noted in the previous two reports dating back to 2018. State aid for highway funds in previous years of $253,000 owed to the street fund was not transferred during the engagement period in noncompliance with Arkansas Code. The city made payments of $1,000 in 2021.
A similar finding was noted in the previous 12 reports dating back to 2003. Mayor Charles Webster and Recorder Treasurer Dora Jordan are here to answer questions. Please introduce yourselves for the record. My name is Dora
Dora Jordan
Unverified
1:46:33
Jordan. I'm the city clerk. Charles Webster,
Speaker 318
1:46:36
Mayor of the City of Torrio. Okay, welcome.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:46:41
Mayor, do you have any response to the audit report?
Speaker 320
1:46:48
Yes, we understand the balance that we have this past year. We did increase the balance from $100 to $400 per month, and now we will work extremely hard in trying to make that close to the 10% which we are required to pay by the end of the year. Close to $5,000 a year. So that would be
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:47:14
about $5,000 a year, according to Coach Ayer. That would be about 5,000 a year, yes, sir.
Speaker 321
1:47:20
How are you doing on that, Mayor? We're doing okay as of now. We are doing okay with
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:47:28
the 5,000. All right. As you probably listen to some of these others, it can be challenging.
Not like y'all are a huge city, but you're certainly a lot bigger than Jericho, for
example. About five times as big
Speaker 295
1:47:41
as Jericho. Yes. But so far, you're able to do
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:47:53
that. Yes. Okay. there was a similar finding was noted in 12 reports dating back to 2003
and you know mayor when i see non-compliance in a year two okay we got to go back and counsel these folks and fix it when we go back 20 years i pay a lot closer attention to
Speaker 276
1:48:15
that and i Were you mayor then, or do you have a response to that? No, this is my second term
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:48:25
as mayor. In fact, six years. Well, we're just, we know people have problems and make mistakes,
but we also want them to learn from them and
correct it, and that's concerning to all of us. Absolutely. Any questions for the
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
1:48:44
mayor? Coach Ray, sir, let me ask you, is this $217,832, is that what your town,
Terrell, actually owes, the street fund? Since 2003, yes, sir. Man, that'll take a long time.
If you did $1,000 a month, that's $12,000 a year, and it would be $120,000 over 10 years. Right. It would take 20 years to pay that. Yes. Is there anything you can do to pay
Speaker 320
1:49:21
more? Well, we are in the process of increasing that to maybe $800 a month, which will give us about, at the end of the year, $7,000.
So we'll think about increasing it.
Speaker 327
1:49:42
Okay. We'll increase it to $800. We said $800 a month. More? More. Okay. Or more or in total? Yeah.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:49:51
Mayor, Co-Chair Ryan, are you speaking to $800 more a month? No, we think about increasing it up to $800. Okay.
Speaker 326
1:49:58
We're thinking about increasing it up to $800. a month. Okay. Well, I'm
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:50:06
going to ask a similar question what Representative Brown asked a
previous panel. Yes. Do you see a way to dig yourself out of this
Speaker 320
1:50:18
mass? Not at this time. Only thing we could do at this point is to continue the payment and try to make that 10 percent payment each year.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:50:30
Okay. As required. Now, if you've listened all day today we talked about this
uh i dare say epidemic of of the cities putting their general
their street fund money in the general fund and spending it but uh obviously this is happening a lot but uh uh you know when push comes to shove you know sometimes push comes to shove you've got other needs out there and you can't just constantly you know be putting that money back I assume you've got a water department, you've got a fire department, you've got a municipal police situation. I mean, surely, you know, is there a plan? Do you see a way that perhaps this could be turned around,
Speaker 320
1:51:12
even if it's a long-term plan? The plan of action at
Speaker 335
1:51:19
this point is to increase it year by year based on the fund that we receive. Okay.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:51:27
Okay. All right. Okay. Ms. Jordan, you
Speaker 339
1:51:35
didn't want to add anything? No. All this year we've been paying like $400 back into the street.
And if we can pay more, we'll have to go before the council and see what they say. Okay. Representative Fy. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mayor, what was your anticipated
Speaker 54
1:51:54
revenue for this year? I don't have it. I had like a 170, wasn't it? 170, 170, maybe 200.
Speaker 320
1:52:03
Okay. What was your budget this year? This past year, about that amount. Okay.
Speaker 54
1:52:14
And was that considering paying more back to the street fund? Yes. Than just the 400? Right.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:52:24
Yes, sir. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Representative Fyre. Any other questions for the mayor? If not, without objection, this will be filed.
Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Wood. Thank you, Al. Widener. It's right down below it. Widener, okay.
Speaker 51
1:52:44
And town of Widener. Okay. The next report to review is the town of Widener for the year 2021. The general and street fund expenditures exceeded budget appropriations by $21,000 and $12,000, respectively, in noncompliance with code. A similar finding was noted in the previous report. Mayor Arvin Billingsley is here to answer questions. Mayor Billingsley, would you identify yourself for the
Speaker 347
1:53:12
record? Yes, Mayor Arvin Billingsley, City of Widener.
You're recognized? Do you have a statement about these things? these two separate funds? Sure. On our yearly budgets, we usually start them or I start them around December. They're not something that fast we can run through. It takes time because a lot of things happen in a year's time that we don't expect. Now, the overages on the general and
street accounts, I guess I'll take the blame for that because as we do those, we always present to our city councils in December. And my precious wife here, the recorder treasurer, she says, from now on, Mayor, you're going to take care of your overage on your budgets in the December meeting when you get your budgets approved. So, I mean, that's the only answer I can give you there. These are, well,
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:54:11
in the whole scheme of things, it's not a lot of money,
but a budget, 32% and 56% respectively, that's let's just say you didn't estimate very well and have you and i know that your recorder treasurer has a lot of influence over you and we'll we'll ask her maybe to join you in a moment but but i got i get what you're saying but it seems that you know if you didn't budget properly where's this money coming from well here's things this is what all mayors
Speaker 347
1:54:45
go through i mean you all
know this we have a storm tears our community center top of it off we're not counting on that $13,000 we have lightning struck a sewer pump we're not counting on that $5,000 just a lot of things that add up storm drains wash out there's some months we get six inches of rain in one day just a lot of things that were not accounted for and not how do I foresee those things I
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:55:14
understand you're speaking what some people call acts of God
Speaker 347
1:55:18
That's correct. When the people came from the ADEQ and they said, your sewer pond likes two inches from running over, Mayor, what are you going to do? I said, I guess the increased flow, and then I'm out of compliance because I flow. And I said, the only thing I know to do is pray maybe God will stop the rain because I couldn't make the rain stop. You know, fortunately,
Speaker 353
1:55:38
we got it in control. But just things like that come. No one could be expected for a lot of things
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:55:46
that come. Yes, sir. Well, again, I'm not being critical of the problems you have.
I understand that, but, you know, that's the whole point of budgeting is to, you know, put in some contingency somewhere. And I'm not saying this will solve your problem because you don't have a printing press for money at your city, but at least it gives you some flexibility to deal with these issues. Yes, sir. Co-Chair, I believe
you've got a question. No, sir, I don't. You were calculating a lot of numbers over there.
I thought maybe he had a question for you. Okay. Any
Speaker 357
1:56:29
other questions for Mayor Billingsley? Sir, may I comment on
Speaker 347
1:56:33
one more thing? Of course, yes, sir. I listened to all the mayors about our water and sewer audits. Now, since 2011, we kept the same one for until 2011, 2021. Same one. 19. So then he tells us, I'm going to get to it, Mayor. I'm going to get to it. One year goes by.
I'm going to get to it. Two years go by. Mayor, I can no longer do this. There's not the money in there. You just take an independent ought. You're a small town. I said, well, please catch them up for me. Well, I can't do that. Well, long story short, the city of Widener went into a contract this past Tuesday with CPA in the city of Winn. And two years, 20 and 21, have been sent to his office, and they are there now. Well, you picked a great town to
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:57:20
do business in. Is his office still there? Yes.
Okay. Well, I'm glad to hear that. I knew there was a disaster you were about to mention on that. Now, I noticed that we have a former mayor that's sitting down here that keeps nodding and all this.
And so, former mayor, do you have any advice for Mayor Billingsley?
Representative Lane Jean
Unverified
1:57:49
I would just say this, that on your appropriations,
just because you have the appropriation to spend it doesn't mean you've got to spend it. But I think if you'll appropriate a little bit extra. Sure. and try to that always helps because but it doesn't mean you have to spend it right but you'll have the authority so I think just how long have you been mayor this was the start of the 13th year okay all right uh you
Speaker 347
1:58:23
ever had the trouble before uh not until probably last year
and maybe one more time but you know we're such a small we don't we don't receive a lot of money like the other communities you know they say they don't receive a lot well we don't either So, you know, it's hard for me to spend more than what's going to be there. But, I mean, sometimes it's going to have to be done.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:58:44
You can't do anything with nature, what it's going to do. Well, Mayor, and I should have properly introduced you
to Representative Lane Jean. He's the former mayor of Magnolia. So he kind of knows what he's talking about. But I think his point, and correct me, Representative Jean, if I'm wrong,
is that you can appropriate and give the authority to spend and be in compliance with the law. Correct. Even if you don't have the money in the bank at the moment, but it would keep you in compliance on appropriation. He also wears a hat. He's our co-chair of the Joint Budget Committee, and he knows, you know, we're a balanced budget state. We're not quite sure how much revenue is going to come into us. The numbers are bigger, but the problem is the same. So we encourage you to at least appropriate what's available.
That's one more box you've checked. And then when there's some money available, you spend 80% of it instead of 100% of the budgeted amount, whatever, just to stay in compliance. So I'm not – I'm going to recognize you in just a moment. But the fact that the principle is the same throughout government. We're not like the federal government, though. They're sitting there with a debt ceiling problem. We don't have to worry about debt ceiling in Arkansas because we can't legally have any debt.
But Representative Gene, please proceed. And I'll
Representative Lane Jean
Unverified
2:00:02
just tell you this, and you know this because I was mayor 16 years, but the greatest resource is Arkansas Municipal League. And you use them as much as you can.
Speaker 349
2:00:14
You pay your dues. You need to get your money out
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
2:00:19
of them. And I yet once again introduce former Senator Critcher over
your left shoulder and my good friend. He has the tremendous resources of the Municipal League available to help you,
and I do commend them to you. But I think what Representative Gene said is very important. You can appropriate a billion dollars. That doesn't mean you've got a billion dollars to spend, but you've given yourself the authority. If the money should come in, maybe some unforeseen thing, who knows, a settlement of a lawsuit or something that would allow you to do those things. But you can't spend it without an appropriation. Right. So I
Speaker 357
2:00:59
think what you all are saying, if I increase spending or anything I want to put it to, it's fine.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
2:01:06
Okay. Okay. Other questions for Mayor Billingsley? Yes.
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
2:01:13
sir you know each year you may want to try starting out at like five percent and have you a fund you know emergency fund and and build that thing up if something did come up like this sewer situation you'd you'd be in a situation where you could actually straighten that out sir okay thank you thank you okay any other questions if not without objection
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
2:01:39
this report be filed thank you mayor thank you so much you all have
Speaker 345
2:01:45
a blessed day you too sir I just want to make
Speaker 51
2:01:50
sure is there anyone else here that is here to answer questions been invited to answer questions regarding repeat finding our report don't think there are okay let's go to the beginning on page one and we'll get the reports
where uh we skipped so the first report is the only previously deferred report we have it's the town of mount vernon for 2021 and 2020 the recorded treasurer did not submit to the council a monthly financial report as required by code um recorded treasurer the only reason this was was deferred was we didn't receive a response in the December meeting. We have received a response in the meantime, and we have spoken with recorder Treasurer Beeson.
She is elderly, and she's had some health issues. And so since we received a response, staff would recommend filing this report. Without objections,
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
2:02:53
the order be filed. All
Speaker 51
2:02:57
right. The next report is Crawford County on page two. It came to our attention that on December 22, 2021, the county initiated a payroll direct deposit of $1,031 to a fraudulent checking account. After receiving an email request to change an employee's direct deposit information, the funds were sent to the fraudulent account on December 24, 2021, and county personnel discovered the email was fake.
The county notified law enforcement and its banking institution but was unable to recover the funds. This is a report going to
Speaker 258
2:03:35
the prosecuting attorney, which by committee policy we're required
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
2:03:42
to review with the committee. Any comments, questions? The report's been
Speaker 51
2:03:50
reviewed. Next is Dallas County. Yes, sir. Dallas County, page 3, for the year 2021. The chief deputy sheriff was over-reimbursed $1,059 due to duplicate reimbursements
and a reimbursement for supplies that the county purchased directly from a vendor. This also is a, these are, we're in the section where reports are referred to the
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
2:04:15
prosecutor. Okay. These will be referred to the
Speaker 51
2:04:18
prosecutor without objection. Okay. Miller County. All right. Miller County, for the year 2021, the county disbursed $1,612 without an authorizing ordinance. It is required by code $1,036 to a business owned by a court member for parts and repairs
and $576 to an
Speaker 371
2:04:34
employee's spouse for moving and assembling office furniture. Any
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
2:04:41
questions? This is referred to prosecutor. Okay. All right. By law. Yes, sir. Number seven, do Ella
Speaker 51
2:04:50
Plain. All right, the town of Del Plain on page four. The mayor paid $1,812 and $141 for labor and bonus pay respectively without support documentation or council approval.
In addition, these amounts were not reported to the Internal Revenue Service. Okay, we're going
Speaker 196
2:05:11
to refer to the prosecutor without objection. All right.
Speaker 50
2:05:17
We covered Gilmore, didn't we? Yes, we're moving on to the town of Harrell
Speaker 51
2:05:24
on page 8. Okay. For the year, this is the town of Harrell for the years 2021, 20, and 2019. The town issued salary overpayments of $750 to the recorded treasurer in 2020.
The approved salary of $1,500 per month was to be paid bimonthly. However, an extra payment was made in December of 2020. The town purchased a truck from a council member for $13,000 in 2020 without an authorizing ordinance and non-compliance with code. He
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
2:05:57
referred to the prosecutor. Okay. Hoxie. City of Hoxie.
Speaker 51
2:06:01
On page nine. It came to our attention that the police chief pawned a city-owned firearm.
According to law enforcement records, the city official used personal funds to retrieve the firearm from the pawn shop, and the firearm was returned to the city. Police Chief Glenn Smith, who retired on September 13, 2022, has been charged with theft of property.
Speaker 51
2:06:31
referred to the prosecutor. Manila. All right. Continuing at the bottom of the page there, the city issued two checks dated July 15.
and July 22, 2022, totaling $1,682 to the spouse and employee who passed away on July 4, 2022. On July 26, 2022, Council Minutes noted the approval of an amount equal to two-week salary be paid after his death. We were unable to determine if the amounts paid were owed to the employee due to a lack of proper record-keeping by the city. Good question, Mr. Townsend. So this, if that person was
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
2:07:07
being paid for a pay period prior to their passing, then that could possibly be appropriate, but the fact that that's a key, you're saying that
we're unable to determine that answer to that question.
That is correct. The records were not. All right. Thank you. Any questions about that one?
Speaker 51
2:07:34
Okay. And it's also referred. Yes, sir. The city is strong on page 10 for the years 2021, 2020, and 2019. All right. Our review disclosed $6,965 in improper charges on the city's credit card, $5,129 in purchases with no or inadequate supporting documentation,
$1,552 in purchases without an adequately documented business purpose, $284 in finance charges and fees the city purchased $2,970 in food primarily from grocery stores without a documented business purpose the city utilized solid waste funds to take to pay monthly dumpster rental fees on behalf of five private businesses in apparent conflict with Arkansas Constitution Article 12 Section 5 which states in part no city shall loan its credit to any
corporation association institution or individually individually additionally this the city builds these businesses through the water department however it does not appear the water department payments were received by the solid waste fund the city offers a service through which individuals can pay utility bills at city hall city employees collect payments and deposits are made in a bank account maintained by a third party provider rather than in a city bank account In July 2022, the city was notified that funds totaling $2,461 collected for payment of utility bills were not deposited.
A city employee who was custodian of these funds was terminated on August 3, 2022. Subsequently, city funds of $2,461 were utilized to pay the provider for the undeposited funds. This is a
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
2:09:25
little disturbing. It sounds, is there one individual that was involved with all
Speaker 85
2:09:30
this thing, Mr. Jones? I don't think,
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
2:09:33
it says city employees. It's like, is there a group of them doing this, or was it just one?
These are multiple violations, and you've got the credit card thing, you've got this utility account thing, and I'm just trying to do that. I'm
Speaker 51
2:09:52
not sure exactly. The credit card, that's where those things, you know, like I said, they were not documented adequately or that kind of thing. And then the purchase of the grocery stores without a documented business purpose, I'm not sure exactly what they used that for. Perhaps the prosecutor can answer all those questions for us.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
2:10:15
Yes, he will look at those. And it's been referred to them.
Thank you. Bradley County. All right. Bradley County, page 12. I'm sorry. Hold on.
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
2:10:26
You have a question on that, Coach Ayer, right? Yes, sir. Mr. Jones, can I ask you this, 2970 in food, primary from grocery stores without a documented business purchase, sir, are they beginning to actually bring
Speaker 240
2:10:41
back tickets and, you know, at the shop?
Speaker 51
2:10:45
Not that I know of. We give them ample opportunity to provide us documentation, and I'm just
Speaker 61
2:10:53
looking here. Mr. Jones, are they doing it now? Going forward? Yes, sir. You know, we haven't audited
Speaker 51
2:11:02
2022 yet, but their response says that they will maintain business purpose documentations on all items purchased. So their response says they will. That's good.
Speaker 312
2:11:13
That's good. Thank you, sir.
Go ahead and proceed. I'm sorry. Okay. Sure.
Speaker 51
2:11:19
Bradley County for the year 2021. This is on page 12. The county paid a hospital employee $50,000 without a contract in apparent conflict with Arkansas Constitution, Article 12, Section 5. Additionally, the county did not issue an IRS Form 1099 to the hospital employee. And in their response there, they kind of tell the situation. It was a doctor, and they received a bonus to be there for a certain amount of time.
That doctor did leave, and so they received, I think, $35,000 of that 50 back. But it was
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
2:11:56
disbursed. It was refunded? Yeah. Well, part
Speaker 51
2:11:59
of it was because they didn't stay as long as they were supposed to.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
2:12:03
So he was given a lump sum payment and then didn't stay long enough, so he refunded the difference. Right. Okay.
Speaker 51
2:12:10
So we didn't see a contract, but obviously there was an agreement because the person paid it back.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
2:12:15
The Constitution says there's got to be a contract. Yes, that's right. Thank you. We already covered Carlisle and Chester, Haynes.
Speaker 218
2:12:22
We're down to Madison. This is beginning the section. These are just financial compliance
Speaker 51
2:12:30
reports. Yes, and they're with repeat findings. All right, Madison, page 21. although schedule one of this report shows a balance of 45 000 it was brought to our attention that as of december 31st 2021 general fund owed a significant amount for balances owed the street and sanitation funds when these outstanding amounts were considered general fund had a deficit balance
of 196 000 the similar finding was noted in the previous two reports state aid for highway funds in previous years of $25,000 owed to the street fund was not transferred during the engagement period. The city is making payments of $100 per month toward this balance. A similar finding was noted in the previous 10 reports. Sales taxes restricted for sanitation expenditures of $8,500 were not transferred to the sanitation fund as well as previous years owed of $208,000 leaving
a balance owed of $216,000. The city is making payments of $100 per month toward this balance. A similar finding was noted in the previous five reports. A fixed asset listing was provided but did not include proper control totals and identification numbers when applicable. Also, the listing contained items below the minimum amount prescribed by the city's fixed asset policy in noncompliance with the code. Similar finding was noted in the previous two reports.
The city's accounts were under collateralized by $324,000 at December 31st, 2021 in noncompliance with code. The mayor and the recorder treasurer were invited, but they were not here. Staff would recommend deferring this
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
2:14:13
report. Without objections, these will be
deferred until June meeting, and you will notify them, will you not? Yes, sir, we
Speaker 51
2:14:29
Cash receipts were not always properly posted or classified by major sources in the journal as required by code. Similar finding was in the previous report. Cash disbursements were not always properly posted or classified by department as required by code. Similar finding was in the previous report. The recorded treasurer was invited, and she didn't show today. Staff recommends deferring the report. Without objection, it's deferred. Okay.
All right. The next would be page 24. And this is a report with a finding with no response. This is the Taylor Municipal Water Works and Sewer System. The finding was the system had uninsured and uncollateralized deposits of $496,000. Staff would recommend deferring, at least until we get a response. How long has
Speaker 289
2:15:25
it been since they didn't respond, Mr. Jones?
Speaker 51
2:15:31
We haven't had this report very long, but it was soon enough to get it in this meeting. Okay, we'll defer. Okay, on pages 24 through 41, there are 62 reports with what we consider adequate responses. Staff would be happy to try to answer any questions if you have any. If not, staff would recommend filing these reports. Any questions? I'll give you all a minute
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
2:15:57
to look over the list. Any ones you might have a question about.
Thank you. got any questions on any of these without objection
Speaker 51
2:16:46
they'll be filed okay on pages 42 through 47
there are 134 reports with no findings staff would recommend filing these reports without objection they'll be fine
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
2:16:57
mr chair that concludes the review of
Speaker 279
2:17:00
the reports okay any other matter need to come before
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
2:17:05
the subcommittee Y'all won't jump up at once.
I mean, we've got the rest of the afternoon, right?
Okay. All right. Thank you, Representative Brown, for
that. Okay. Well, if there's no other visits, we'll stand adjourned. And remember, we're back in the morning at the full committee at 9 o'clock in Big Mac. Thank you.
Agenda
A. Call to Order by Chair
B. Adoption of Minutes of the December 1, 2022 meeting
C. Discussion of Act 709 of 2021, Repayment of Highway Turnback Funds1. Town of Fulton2. Town of Haynes
A. Review of Reports(Refer to the Synopsis)
B. The next meetings of the Legislative Joint Auditing Committee will be held onJune 1, 2023.
C. Adjournment
500 WOODLANE STREET, SUITE 172 • LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS 72201-1099 • PHONE: (501) 683-8600 • FAX: (501) 683-8605 www.arklegaudit.gov
Documents
| Title | Type | Pages | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agenda — LEGISLATIVE JOINT AUDITING - COUNTIES AND MUNICIPALITIES, May 11, 2023 | Agenda | 5 | Official source ↗ |
Speakers
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
Representative Johnny Rye
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Speaker 5
Representative Kendon Underwood
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Representative Carol Dalby
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Representative Matt Brown
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Senator Fredrick J. Love
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Speaker 118
Senator Ben Gilmore
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Speaker 126
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Caleb Conrad
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Mayor Bruce
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Laniece Elmore
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Dora Jordan
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Speaker 318
Speaker 320
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Speaker 347
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Representative Lane Jean
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Speaker 349
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