Legislative Joint Auditing-Counties and Municipalities
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Speaker 1
0:00
Would you leave us in a brief word of prayer? I
Speaker 4
0:07
sure will. Please stand. Can we all stand, please? Dear God, we have so many problems, but we do not know how to be so thankful for the life that you give us to live. We ask you to look into every move that we make. Let the Holy Spirit just take its course and lead us
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
0:24
in the right direction. And we ask all of these things in Jesus' blessed name. Amen. Amen.
Thank you. Okay. The chair will entertain a motion to adopt the minutes of the January 8th meeting. Senator Kroll is a second. Representative Beck. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. Minutes are adopted. Update on
Speaker 7
0:49
private reports. Item C. Do you want to go ahead and cover that? Yes, sir.
Speaker 10
0:57
Thank you, Mr. Chair. our update on the delinquent private water and sewer reports for the year ending 2022
since the january meeting we have had two cities file reports through 2024 and we have submitted letters to the treasurer of state to request their turn back be reinstated as of now 19 of the 43 original entities have had their turn back released and reinstated which leaves 24 that that are continuing to have funds held in escrow. Mr. Chair, this concludes my report. - Can we, does everyone
have, do we have something in here that tells who they are
on this one? Does anybody want to hear that list? Mr. Archer, if you want to share that
Speaker 16
1:42
with the committee, go ahead and take a microphone there. I just want you to give it
and we'll have it for everybody to get if they need a copy so yeah okay yeah
just if you'll just read it you read the list so
Speaker 23
2:08
everyone kind of know and then if any
members have any questions about it you
Speaker 10
2:14
know I'll be glad to entertain those okay this is the 19 that are still having their funds escrowed Clarendon Evening Shade Hardy Hartford Plummerville Valley Springs, Wilmar, Kaysa, Dumas, Norman, Buckner, Eudora, Lake Village, Norfolk, Wabasica, Wilmot, Biggers, Carthage, Falk, Grady, Leadhill, Latona, Menifee, and Ullum.
Speaker 11
2:45
Okay, any questions about any of that? Okay, I assume we'll, should we Do
Speaker 7
2:52
we need to do the same thing on item D, which is the same thing for 23? Yes, sir. Go right ahead.
Speaker 10
3:03
Okay. The update for the reports ending in 2023, there's been no change since the last meeting and we still have 59 of the 64 entities that did file their reports, which leaves five
entities that have not filed reports. are not currently having their turn back escrowed at this time mr
Speaker 30
3:24
chair that concludes my report do you want me
Speaker 13
3:28
to read you these five any would you like to hear who
Speaker 28
3:33
the five are go ahead and read it yes blackrock bull shoals garland marvel
Speaker 7
3:39
and omaha okay any questions okay well we can move on uh i guess we go to item e non-compliance of county law adona yes sir thank you steph
Speaker 10
3:51
The staff visited the city of Adona on January 21st of 26 and reported that progress has been made to bring the accounting records into substantial compliance with the municipal accounting laws and therefore staff recommends discontinuing the process of withholding term back as outlined in code 1459117. That concludes my report. Okay. Any questions? Okay. Without objection,
Speaker 38
4:13
we'll file the report. I think we need a
motion. a motion we need a motion to file is there a motion to file the report representative rice
second representative beck all in favor say aye opposed okay we're done all right
Speaker 7
4:29
uh next item f gum springs okay gum springs um this one wait gum springs that's the next one on the list what about denning i
Speaker 41
4:35
have a different one you have a different list
Speaker 10
4:53
okay yours is different from mine okay gum springs um okay so this one uh we are going to uh ask this committee
to recommend the con the city of gum springs for substantial non-compliance with municipal accounting law under 14 59 117 and with your permission mr chair we should go ahead and
Speaker 10
5:14
on page 19 of the synopsis the town of gum springs this one has repeat findings and it is as of year ending december 31st 2024 finding under the mayor the budget was not adopted by ordinance or resolution as required by arkansas code
this is a repeat finding the governing body did not review the prior year's report and accompanying comments at the first regularly scheduled meeting following receipt of the reports as required by code also a repeat finding findings under the recorder treasurer accounting procedures for municipalities are set forth in the municipal accounting law arkansas codes 1459 101 through 119. the town was in non-compliance with these codes as noted below bank accounts were not reconciled monthly cash receipts and disbursements journals were not established for all funds
Prenumbered receipts were not issued for all revenues received, and some receipts were not deposited timely. A detailed fixed asset listing was not established. While performing the disbursement procedures, we noted the following issues. Adequate supporting documentation was not maintained for six checks, totaling $1,418. An authorization for payment was not indicated for 12 disbursements. Annual financial statements were not prepared and published.
and the treasurer did not submit a monthly financial report to the council to include receipts disbursements and balance on hand together with liabilities of the town these are all repeat findings continuing on page 20 we noted the following issues during our review of payroll records payroll ledgers were not prepared details of salaries were not documented payroll totals were provided to a cpa to prepare tax reports net of tax no taxes were withheld from
payroll checks approved salaries were net of tax and the payroll clerk and mayor salaries were not properly authorized these are all repeat findings as well in 2022 the insurance premium tax fund act 833 was incorrectly deposited into the fire department account after including approved actor act 833 expenditures paid from the fire department account 6304 dollars should be deposited and
expended from the town established act 833 fund for the purpose of training purchase and improvement of firefighting equipment initial capital construction of improvements of a fire department insurance for buildings and utility costs this is also a repeat finding we have the mayor and the recorder treasurer here today okay would y'all please come to the
end of the table and if you you will both uh sit down and uh hit your mic and identify yourself for the record
Speaker 57
8:23
I'm Tony Beard, the Recorder Treasurer of
Speaker 60
8:26
Gum Springs. Yes, ma'am. And Mayor? I'm Mel Dean Ivory, Mayor
of Gum Springs. Okay, thank you both. I will allow you all to respond to what our staff has just said about
Speaker 57
8:42
your audit and the repeat findings. Yes,
Speaker 61
8:44
sir, I'm sorry that it wasn't done, but I have since established the journals, reconciled the bank's statements. I do have resolutions for the salary.
I have numbered receipts, and I have the financial statements, and if you would like to see them, I have them right here. I'll take your word for it,
but I would like to know, and this was done for all the years that were in question, correct, or just the most recent ones? It's the most recent because there was not really any
Speaker 61
9:16
records or anything to look at. How long have you been recorder treasurer? I started in 24. Okay, so
it goes back to before you were in this office.
Okay. Mayor, do you have anything to add to what
Speaker 60
9:33
she said? You might pull your mic down. Pull your mic down, Mayor. Oh, okay, I'm sorry. Yeah. They had something on about 2015, and we're having a problem finding those records. And I was mayor, I started in 2019, but we're not going to, just because I started in 19, we will still work to find those, the stuff, the discrepancies that were in 2015.
So we're going to work toward that end to try to get that established and get that fixed
Speaker 13
10:11
also. Okay. Any questions by members of
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
10:16
court of treasurer, Representative Dalton? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Mayor, I'm just curious, you've been in
office for five years. What did you do prior to now trying to correct these things? Because these have been repeat findings, well, going all the way back to 2003, but let's just look at 2019 on.
And so it kind of concerns me that nobody's addressed these, and we're five years down the road, and this is taxpayer money that's being misappropriated or squandered. Can you address that, please? I'll
Speaker 60
10:51
try. The biggest thing, what we was having problems with, we weren't putting some of the stuff in the minutes, but now we are making sure everything is in the minutes. Ms. Davis is making sure that we're doing this stuff.
When I took over the mayor's job, the guy had resigned. I didn't know anything. I was trying to learn on the fly, I guess you call it, but I'm not making excuses. So we're trying to do a whole lot better. She come on 2024, and we had a lot of problems when we got there. But, like I said, I'm not going to make excuses. We're just going to try to do better.
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
11:44
Follow-up, Mr. Chair. It's not really a question, but a suggestion. Have you worked with these
people that are sitting over here to your left from the Municipal League? They're here to help you, and they can help you all make sure you're doing the right thing. Have you been going to the training, or have you sought out training from the Municipal League? No, ma'am.
Speaker 78
12:06
Not at this time. I will, though. I guarantee you they're
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
12:10
here to help you. All right. Appreciate it.
Thank you for that advice, Representative Dalby. Any other committee members with questions? Yes, sir. So we need
Speaker 10
12:25
to determine the will of the committee if we want to start the 60-day clock on the town.
Speaker 86
12:32
This is to withhold their turn back. Yes, sir. Does everyone understand that? We're
hitting the stopwatch thing. Is there any discussion about that or even a motion about that?
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
12:45
Do you need a motion to start the clock or
is that just the recommendation? We do need a motion. So moved. So moved by Representative Dalby, seconded by Representative McElroy. Any discussion on the motion? If not, all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? I presume that means it starts today. Yes, sir. We just clicked the stopwatch and it's how many days? 60
Speaker 13
13:11
days. 60 days. And you understand? We understand.
Speaker 10
13:15
Yes, sir. Okay. All right. So now we can determine if we want to file the report, which we can still file with the 60-day clock starting, or if
you all wish to defer. What is the will of the committee? Motion to file. Second by, motion by Representative Dalby, second by Representative Beck. Any discussion on that? Not all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Okay, thank you. Folks, thank you for coming. Sheriff, no problem. Mr. Dalby gave you excellent advice. Talk to the people at the Municipal League, and that's what they're there for, and they can help.
Speaker 100
13:47
Okay, thank you. What's next? Town of Fargo. I'll show Fargo. Yes, sir. Is that right?
Speaker 105
14:07
Yes, sir. Okay. Next, we have noncompliance from Fargo. Is anyone from Fargo here? No, sir. Okay. No, sir. What do we need to do?
Speaker 10
14:17
If I may, yes, sir. We were planning to discuss the substantial noncompliance and starting the 60-day clock as well for the town of Fargo. We can still discuss, and we can act on the 60-day clock, or we can defer, depending on the will of the committee. But the mayor is not here. Okay. Is this the first time
Speaker 7
14:34
he was invited on this particular? He called in sick. Okay. Well, we can relate that.
We can't say that it was okay for Senator Stone to call in sick, and then the mayor can't call in sick. So we're going to be even-handed on that.
But is any objection to deferring this to next month? If not, we'll defer
Speaker 7
14:55
it to next month without objection. Okay, and now we go to Denning. Okay, so the town
Speaker 10
15:04
of Denning, thank you, Mr. Chair, is also for consideration of substantial noncompliance with municipal accounting law. with your permission, we'd like to go ahead and read the findings for the town of Denning. Please proceed. It's
Speaker 10
15:27
And the town of Denning is also being referred to the prosecuting attorney and attorney general. This report is for December 31st, 2024, 23, and 22. And under the mayor, the town made payments totaling 4,300, 2,170, and 3,858, and 24, 23, and 22, respectively, without an authorizing ordinance as required by code. 4,365 was paid to a council member for mowing services, 3,700 and 400 paid to a council member for cleaning services and mowing services, respectively.
1,319 was paid to the mayor for various services, and $544 was paid to the recorder treasurer for various services. Budgets were not adopted by ordinance or resolution as required by Arkansas Code. This is a repeat finding. Continuing on to page 12, these findings are under the recorder treasurer and bookkeeper. A review of disbursements revealed that supporting documentation was not maintained for the following disbursements in noncompliance with code.
Approximately 3,200, 2,300, and 2,000 were dispersed in 24, 23, and 22, respectively. The majority of these disbursements were to the mayor, who was unable to provide an explanation or documentation. Therefore, the validity and propriety of these disbursements could not be determined. Also, approximately $17,000, $42,000, and $75,000 dispersed in 24, 23, and 22, respectively, to vendors that appear to be for a legitimate business purpose.
However, supporting documentation was not available. This is a repeat finding. Accounting procedures for municipalities are set forth in Arkansas Code 1459-101 through 119. The town was in noncompliance with these code sections and proper accounting procedures as noted below. Pre-numbered checks were not issued for all disbursements. This is a repeat. Electronic disbursements were made without proper approval of the town council by ordinance and without establishing written policies and procedures to ensure that EFT payment systems provide for internal accounting controls
and documentation for audit and accounting purposes. Checks did not always contain the signature of two authorized dispersing officers. A fixed asset listing was not established. This is a repeat finding. Annual financial statements were not prepared and posted. Bank accounts were not reconciled for 23 and 22. Bank reconciliations prepared for 24 were not accurate and were not approved by someone other than the preparer, a repeat finding.
Prenumbered receipts were not issued for all funds received, a repeat finding. Cash receipts journals were not prepared for 23 and 22. Cash receipts journals for 24 did not include all receipts and were not reconciled to total deposits per the bank, a repeat finding. Cash disbursements journals were not prepared for 23 and 24. Cash disbursement journals for 24 did not include all disbursements and were not reconciled to total disbursements per bank, also a repeat finding. The following issues were noted during the review of payroll records, IRS quarterly 941 reports, W-2 forms, W-3 forms, and DFA ARW-3 forms were not provided for inspection for 23 and 22, a repeat finding, and authorized salaries could not be determined for the mayor and recorder treasurer, a repeat finding.
Speaker 52
19:09
We have the mayor and recorder treasurer here today. You both
come up to the end of the table and make yourself comfortable and introduce yourself. Turn your mic on.
Speaker 116
19:28
I'm Paul Lee, Mayor Denning. Candace Harmon,
Recording Treasurer. Okay. Mayor, would you like to respond to
Speaker 116
19:37
the items that Ms. Gassaway mentioned in the talk before?
22, 23, we lost our recorder
Speaker 121
19:43
treasurer to COVID, lost her husband in the same house, their daughter in the same house over COVID. I finally got some folks hired up to suit up and get in there and get what she had. The papers were distorted. They'd been gone through. We got everything, disinfected it, and tried to dig out as much as we could of it.
And then we hired another lady that was taking care of our recorded area, and she got Alzheimer's. And she run me down a rabbit hole. Well, it's not her fault. She's very capable of doing her job when we hired her. But she ran me down a rabbit hole, and this hole just kept getting deeper. Then we hired another young lady that was in the city.
And the way I got the box bag was with the stuff that she had was with urine all over it. So, anyways, I'm to this young lady, and hopefully she'll be taking my seat someday because I'm ready to get out of this. After 30-something years of it, it's beginning to get the best of me. So, anyways, I'd like to, you know, tell the council that it's been a very rough go as far as some of those checks that were written to me was for material paid back to me that I paid out of my own pocket.
Those receipts, I found one. The other one, I didn't. And it was on a new pavilion that we had built in the city of Denning. got to Lowe's, Lowe's wouldn't take a city check. And so I paid for it out of my pocket. And anyways, if you've got any questions, I'll try
Speaker 116
21:53
my best to answer them. Okay. So it's been a rough ride. Well, I'm sorry to hear,
especially about the loss of your colleagues, Mayor. Any questions of the committee members?
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
22:04
Representative Dalby. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd welcome any members of this committee to ask questions besides
Speaker 123
22:12
me. Well, but that's why we have smart lawyers that are in the legislature, and you're probably the
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
22:19
smartest. Well, it's not saying much some days,
but thank you, Mr. Chair. Ma'am, I'm sorry, I missed
your name, and you're the recorder. Is that correct? Yes, ma'am, Candace Harmon. I'm sorry, Ms. Harmon, I just missed your name.
Speaker 126
22:31
When did you come on board? I believe it was May or June 2023.
I was the recorder. I started in, I believe, January 2022, and that's when Donna, I believe she had already passed away, but I didn't take the Treasury position until towards the
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
22:52
end of 2023, mid to the end. Okay. And my questions are similar to
my previous questions because, you know, we're dealing with taxpayer money and being good fiduciaries of that money. and there obviously are a lot of issues and a lot of repeat issues.
So my question is, have you worked with the Municipal League, and have you gone to any of their trainings to learn what to do and
Speaker 126
23:20
how to do this and to get it back in shape? I will say that I have not been with the Municipal League. I actually wanted to ask this council for advice. I've put in, I'm resigning. We're currently going to put someone on the board. My last day was supposed to have been yesterday,
but we found out that we were going to do this 60-day probation, and I wanted to ask the council their advice. Do I need to stay on another 60 days to assure that this probation is done correctly, or do we need to go ahead and appoint the new treasurer? As far as the repeats, I really would like to point out, I believe the first audit I was involved in was for Pam Minshew's work, and that was up to 22, 2020 to 2021, 1921 maybe.
I had to sign for that audit. That would explain some of the repeats, not all of them. Same for the others. We discussed with our auditor future budgets will be adopted by ordinances or resolutions. We actually last night hired an attorney to sit in our meetings to make sure that all of our resolutions, ordinances are being done correctly. And future findings, we'll be addressing them to the council as far as this audit.
I believe we have to wait until the next month to discuss it with them. That was one of our findings. payroll records are going to be retained. I've been in touch with our CSA officer. The 941s are caught up and he's shown me how to do that quarterly. I've enrolled us for an ESTPS account. I'll say a lot of this is as a training issue. When I came on, it was a mess. I had no idea how
to do it. I just know that we have 300-something citizens. It has to be someone from town.
Speaker 121
25:35
We needed help and I offered to help. I'd like to address that. Once Candace got on board with us on this, we visited with a small city Knoxville and John Tyson was telling me about the CSA package that you could get. So, Candace and I got together and got with the city aldermans, and we purchased
that package. And that's a software package. It really helps. I mean, it gives you a platform that you can go by. I mean, if you're used to this stuff, yeah, you can understand it, but I'm just an old country boy, and she just come along and offered to help us, and I really I want to say that she took at and spent quite a few days studying with the secretary of Knoxville to learn that package.
And we even hired her to come up to our city hall just so we could learn how to do that. So anyways, once that program gets totally established and the person is used to it, it is a handy tool from what I've seen of it. And
Speaker 121
26:55
helpful? Yes, ma'am, because it does all of our check writings now. It helps us to understand the platform that we need to be taking
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
27:04
as well. Certainly. Well, I appreciate y'all's answer.
I'm sorry that you're leaving, but I'm sure that's between you and your council as to how you proceed from this point. But I would urge certainly the mayor and whoever replaces you that you get with these individuals that are right over here. Absolutely. They're here to help. They want to help. They want to see cities do the right thing, and so I would encourage you to do that. Thank you,
Mr. Chair, for your indulgence. Yes, ma'am. Representative Beck, were you asking to be
recognized? Okay. Okay. Let me follow up on Representative Dalby's comment.
We encourage you all to do whatever you need to do to work this out. We're not the ones that tell you how to do it. If y'all, you, your city council members and everyone else wants you to stay for another 60 days, we're okay with that. And if you want to leave right away and they agree that we're okay with that, we just want the things taken care of. So it's not our job to micromanage your city, but we would support the efforts that y'all would make to try to work that out.
Am I speaking for the committee very well on that? Okay. And that doesn't mean we're leaning one way or the other. It just simply means that it's not our duty to tell y'all how to operate this thing. So any other questions or comments about knitting? Now, can we, are we in the same situation on the 60-day clock? Yes, sir. This gas away? Okay. What's the wheel of the committee? Do we click the stopwatch or do we?
So moved. Okay. There's a second by Representative Dalby, second by Representative Gene. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. So, Mayor, you've got 60 days, and after that, you'll start losing turnbacks. So, again, we don't dictate your solution, but I encourage you to get with the municipality or whoever else you need to, and maybe even the vendor of your new software and help you get through this. thank you yes sir thank you both for coming thank you okay
Speaker 7
29:22
okay and without objection we'll fire
file this report uh and the next is uh uh did we do fargo fargo's not here fargo's not here that's right okay all right so we need to move to the reports right yes
Speaker 10
29:41
go right ahead okay thank you mr chair starting on page one City of Green Forests for the year ending December 31st, 24. Findings under the city clerk and a fixed asset listing was established but was not properly maintained to include major categories, control totals, additions, and deletions as required by code.
This is a repeat finding, and we do have the
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
30:09
city clerk here. Folks, would y'all please introduce yourself
Morgan Gonzalez
Unverified
30:13
for the record? My name is Morgan Gonzalez, and
I am the city clerk slash recorder. Okay. Sir? I am appointed mayor
Speaker 141
30:22
of Green Forest, Jerry Carlton. I took over in December for Don McNeely, who passed away in November. And that's part of the reason why we're here, is because of that death.
Well, condolences to your city and your family, the former mayor. I mean, we understand. But let's go back to the facts that we're going
to help you get straightened out. Yes, sir. Can we continue? All we need to do on that is what? Any questions for the mayor and the recorder treasurer? If not, we'll entertain a motion to file the report.
Motion by Representative Jean, second by Representative Beck. Any discussion? not all in favor say aye. Opposed? Okay. Thank you all for coming up here. Thank you. And I hope you all get everything worked out. Mayor, thank you for your service. I have a lot of empathy for small town officials that will come in and do this job because you know often it's thankless and so I don't want you to think we're here that this major tribunal that's looking down at you. We just want you to be in compliance with the
Speaker 141
31:36
law. Yes sir. It was more bad timing than he actually
passed away the day that she signed for the audit, so that's the only reason why she's here, because he couldn't sign
Speaker 146
31:46
for it. Well, the Lord gives us so many days in this world, so we'll just, we'll work
Speaker 154
31:54
around it. Thank you for coming. Thank you. Keep going. Yes,
Speaker 10
32:01
ma'am. Okay. Keep going, Ms. Gatton. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay, and I failed to mention that these ten, including Green Forest, these next ten are all deferred from the prior meeting. So next we have private water sewer reports, and on pages one through three, I'm going
to skip around just a bit. The Outside Kingsland Rural Water Association ending December 31st, 23, Quinn Water Association ending March 31st of 25, Strong Water and Sewer Fund December 31, 23, and Whelan Springs Water System December 31st, 23. We have received responses from each of these, and staff recommends we file these reports. Without
Speaker 10
32:45
And then we have five more, Fulton Water Department, December 31st, 23. McRae Municipal Water and Sewer System, December 31st, 24. Montrose Water and Sewer Department, December 31st, 24. And Wilmer Water and Sewer Department for December 31st, 23 and 22. We have not received responses, and staff recommends we defer these reports. Okay. Any
discussion or questions of staff on this? If not, we'll defer these.
And should we right now, Ms. Gassaway, announce to the committee about our March meeting? As you all know, a lot of these committee rooms are being renovated, and our March meeting will be in room 149. So don't come in here in a month and say, where are you all? Because there'll be construction workers probably in there, but we'll probably send something out to make sure everybody knows that. But
I wanted to let y'all know that right now. Okay, please proceed. Thank you,
Speaker 10
33:42
Mr. Chair. We have two reports that have been certified to the bond board and referred to the prosecuting attorney and attorney general.
The first is the city of Elaine for the years ending December 31st, 24 and 23. Under the mayor, the city discovered and we verified that the fire chief purchased questionable items totaling $1,825 and $1,504 during 24 and 23, respectively. The fire chief acknowledged to city officials that items totaling $418 were personal purchases. Without supporting documentation, it is unclear if a business purpose of the remaining items.
The fire chief resigned on January 28th of 25, and the city has not recouped any of these funds and questions. If there are no questions, staff recommends we file. Any questions? No one's here
Speaker 105
34:38
prosecutor? Yes, ma'am. Okay. It's already been turned over to the prosecutor? It will be, yes. It
will be, yeah. Yeah, this one's kind of a no-brainer. Okay, any other questions or comments on it? If not, we'll file that and move on to- Okay, on to page five.
Speaker 10
34:53
Also certified to the bond board and referred to the prosecuting attorney and attorney general, the city of Strong for the years ending December 31st, 23 and 22. This finding is under the mayor. Receipts primarily from the sale of garbage bags totaling over $11,000 were not deposited from January 1 of 22 through October 31st of 25. Due to multiple employees having access to the funds and lack of proper controls, we were unable to determine the custodian of the undeposited funds.
Turning to page six, the city utilized solid waste funds to pay monthly dumpster rental fees on behalf of five private businesses in apparent conflict with Arkansas Constitution, which states, in part, no county, city, town, or other municipal corporation shall loan its credit to any corporation, association, institution, or individual. Additionally, the city bills these businesses through the Water Department. However, it does not appear that the Water Department transfers the payments received to the Solid Waste Fund.
This is a repeat finding. The city made the following payments, totaling over $2,600 in apparent conflict with Arkansas Constitution, as interpreted by the Attorney General's opinion, over $2,000 in food and related purchases that did not have a business purpose, and a $500 donation to the Gardner Alumni Association. This is a repeat finding. The city was in noncompliance with accounting procedures for municipalities set forth in state laws, Arkansas Codes 1459.101 through 119, and other proper accounting procedures as follows.
Bank reconciliations contained errors and were not approved by someone other than the preparer. Pre-numbered receipts were not issued for all funds received, issued sequentially or timely, properly completed or indicated on the deposit slip. Cash receipts were not always properly posted and classified in the journal. Adequate supporting documentation was not maintained for all disbursements. A listing of fixed assets was established. However, it did not include additions and deletions or control totals contained errors.
This is also a repeat finding. Moving on to page 7. Payroll taxes were not always paid to the IRS by the due date. This resulted in penalties and interest of $508 paid to the IRS. In addition, over $2,700 in penalties and interest related to 2020 and 2019 payroll tax deposits were paid to the IRS in 22. This is a repeat finding. Various restricted funds were deposited into the wrong bank accounts.
All those schedules one and three show cash balances of approximately $158,000 and $65,000 for the general fund for 23 and 22, respectively. The general fund owed the solid waste fund over $168,000 and $157,000 as of December 31st of the same years. Excuse me. Yes, sir. That's each of
Speaker 163
38:03
those is for a different year? Yes, sir. Okay, that's 23 and 22, correct?
Speaker 10
38:11
Yes, sir. Okay, please proceed. Okay, sure. As shown on Note 5 on Schedule 5, when these outstanding amounts were considered, the general fund had a deficit fund balance of over $10,000 and $92,000 as of December 23 and 22, respectively. Additionally, $3,600 was due to the street fund from the solid waste fund as of December 31, 23. Subsequent to the report date, that amount was repaid. This is a repeat finding. Street fund expenditures exceeded appropriations in 22 by 50,000 or 71% in noncompliance with code.
This is a repeat finding. And the governing body did not review the prior report and accompanying comments at the first regularly scheduled meeting following the receipt of the report in noncompliance with code. Also a repeat finding. And we have the
Speaker 52
39:02
mayor here today. okay mayor would you like
to come up and visit with us please sit down and turn your mic on and identify yourself
Speaker 168
39:18
for the record daryl howell mayor of city of strong okay thank you mayor howell um would you like to respond
to the things that miss gasway just uh outlined uh yes sir
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
39:30
on the on the initial on number one With the garbage bag receipts, we have implemented the internal controls on that. We have currently had a process of the water clerk and the city clerk collects all those payments and makes all those deposits. And so we've corrected that to make sure that we have a garbage sale ledger that we've created.
And unfortunately, I was not able to monitor those. But all those receipts, those payments, were received by the water clerk and the city clerk. And so we've implemented some internal controls to make sure that we're monitoring and making sure those deposits are being made. Go right ahead, you're recognized, Representative Dalby.
Speaker 105
40:16
I think you might be asking the same one, I'm going to, you go ahead first.
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
40:21
Well, simply because we have so much, I hate to interrupt.
No, that's fine, you go right ahead. Number one, Mr. Mayor, what happened to the 11, where's
Speaker 174
40:32
the $11,878? And that, you know, after we actually met with our
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
40:38
auditor and then those was basically what was said by those, the clerk and the city clerk and the water clerk. Apparently, those funds were supposedly deposited. We, you know, tried to track it with the auditors and they were not able to come up with those.
Did it go into somebody's pocket? Of course, now that I'm not certain. Of course, the water clerk, city clerk makes all, receives those payments and makes all those deposits. I understand, but my question
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
41:11
is, if you're making those deposits, if they were being made, they were going into some account, and you couldn't find that money anywhere? Correct, because they were supposed to have been deposited into the
Speaker 176
41:21
general fund. Okay, Mayor, I have a question about the garbage bags.
I assume that this means the city is providing residents with a garbage bag rather than one of these roller type dumpster things. Am I just presuming something that's not
Speaker 180
41:40
true? No, no sir, these are actually bags, comes in a box of
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
41:45
50, where we actually purchased those from the county, and then individuals come in and purchase a box of those bags. And that they're sold like at $9 a box. Has anybody ever heard
Chair
Unverified
41:56
of something like this? I mean, I'm not.
Former Mayor, Representative Gene, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mayor, how long have you been
Speaker 186
42:10
mayor? This is year 24. Year 24. The clerks at the water office that are taking this money, are they still there? Yes, and I actually brought that to
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
42:23
the attention of the auditor. And they said that basically don't take any action until we get through this report and it's presented to the council.
Speaker 185
42:32
And so they've been there the four or five years that y'all
Representative Lane Jean
Unverified
42:39
been selling these garbage bags and we can't find the money, yet the employees are still there. I think the citizens of strong deserve better than this. This is shameful. It really is. Absolutely. And I just, when people are taking money, it had to be taken somewhere.
It just, I mean, if it's not in an account, somebody pocket this money, what it looks like. Consequences need to happen because I'm very familiar with strong. I used to be in the logging business and years ago we went to Crossit. When Crossit was booming in the paper, I've stopped there at the convenience store and a lot of good people in strong. But anyway, they deserve better than this and we'll get on to the other stuff.
But I think we need to take this more seriously than what it seems the City of Strong is doing
on the financial part for their citizens. Thank you,
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
43:54
Representative Gene. Representative Beck, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question is related to the dumpster rentals that were paid on behalf of five private businesses. So, explain to me, it says that the payments were not made on behalf of the, and it says that we'll implement a plan to transfer the past fees collected by the city water fund to the solid waste fund.
So, it seems like, I may be not understanding it, but it seems like it's a private business that received pre-rental. And the city is making up for it by transferring between what appears to be two city accounts? Where are the
private businesses paying them? Those private businesses, they actually have on the water bills. And they were currently, just past practice,
they were billed on their water bill for the dumpsters that the county actually picks up. And somewhere during the land, those payments comes out on their water bill. instead of actually being billed directly from the county. We have contacted the county and got that corrected. Okay, all right, so now I
Speaker 193
45:16
understand it, thank you. Okay, other questions?
Mayor, I'm still back on this
sale of garbage bags. If it were $500, $600, and I say, okay, when you're talking about over $11, Almost $12,000 for sale of garbage bags. I mean, I'm sorry, that just didn't pass the smell test with me. Can you
Speaker 168
45:42
elaborate a little bit more about that? That's a lot of
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
45:47
garbage bags for a small town. Well, if you look at it, it goes back from the report from January of 2022 through October 2025.
And apparently those payments for those bags were being received. And, of course, I, you know, periodically I check the actual deposit books. And, of course, those deposit books, you know, they were putting the receipts in the books. But the actual deposits were not being made. And so it was
Speaker 170
46:16
just an oversight. So they were counting for the deposits. They just weren't making
Speaker 168
46:21
the deposits. Is that what you're telling me? Correct. That's a major red flag, I would think.
Any other committee members have a question? Oh, come on,
Speaker 196
46:37
Representative Dalby. You can help me on this. We're
Speaker 168
46:42
calculating. We're calculating over here. I do that sometimes, too. It's what we're calculating. But again, and then, Mayor, please do not
take offense of what I'm saying. That's an awful lot of garbage bags for a small town. And, you know, you can see what we're concerned about is that the money went somewhere,
and it went somewhere it wasn't supposed to. And, of course, it's been referred to the prosecutor and the attorney general, so they've got a lot more resources to look at that than we do. But
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
47:15
I'm concerned for you and your town over that. And certainly, you know, I am as well. Because those funds, of course, with myself not being there every day during this period, because of traveling back and forth to Little Rock to school,
that was just an oversight of internal control, not monitoring. Because, of course, I did check the actual payments, I mean, the receipts. And it appeared that they were receiving the money, but but the clerk was not apparently depositing it. Representative Rye? Thank you,
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
47:54
ask you this. Just a question that's not quite in line with what we were just speaking about. What, how much do those bags cost?
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
48:03
They're $9 per box. And how many comes in a
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
48:08
box? 50. 50. It sounds you can buy 200 of those for $19. Yeah, but
Speaker 170
48:16
these are really, you know, commercial, really, you know, strong, heavy-duty bags. Really? Yes. Okay.
Speaker 204
48:22
Thank you. Okay. Do you have another question, Representative Dobbin? I do, Mr.
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
48:29
Chair. You're recognized. Excuse me, Mr. Mayor, on page 7, on the findings, it talks about funds deposited into the wrong bank accounts.
And then when you read all the way through that particular deal, you're running a deficit fund balance, one year of $10,465, and another deficit fund balance of nearly $95,000 is $92,226. And, I mean, I'm just at a loss of words how this doesn't start raising a red flag to you and the other city council members that you're running deficits.
Can you explain to me why you can't get your house in order on this? I mean, that's a lot of money. I know where Strong is. I've been through Strong. This is a lot of money for a small town. And can you explain to me why the accounting was so poor that y'all are running deficits? It looks like you're robbing Peter to pay Paul. Can you please explain something to me? Because I'm at a loss at how any town can run like that.
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
49:44
Yes, now those balances, now I would think those balances had to come from back in maybe 2015 or 16. We had a change of city clerk, and then for maybe a year and a half, those deposits from the solid waste weren't transferred to general fund, or vice versa, from general fund to solid waste. And those have just carried, because, you know, those, when they come from the state,
it lists, it doesn't specify that those are from, they go to solid waste. And so they were left in general funds, and therefore that's not being transferred. It's just that the city from that point just did not have the resources in that general fund to put those back. But that's not a recent. Those funds were
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
50:40
back in probably 16 or 17.
And I understand, and I appreciate your response, but these are findings that have been previously reported.
And so it appears to me that these were reported, this has happened before, and nothing was done. Now it's happened again. And so is it going to happen again next year and the next year? I mean, at some point in time, this would have, I can't imagine, I guess my question is, why didn't it catch your attention the first time? And now we are at repeat findings of the very same issue. Can you explain to me why you're letting it ride?
You think it will just go away? I mean, we're not going to go away in
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
51:27
this committee. Right. At this time, I mean, the issue has been that there were just not resources in the, after that, those were not transferred. There was just not resources in the general fund to actually transfer those funds back. So we will have a plan at our next meeting to go ahead and address that, at least start a process of trying to get a certain amount of those funds transferred monthly back to the solid waste.
Speaker 204
51:55
Okay, Representative Breyer, you have a question again. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
52:01
Yes, sir, on page seven, internal revenue looks like you got behind in paying them what was actually being pulled out of people's
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
52:11
checks. Have you got that straightened out? Yes, sir. I think in 2024, we hired a CPA firm, immigrants, and so they're doing that. We haven't had any of those penalties or late payments since then.
Speaker 221
52:25
Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Any other questions?
I'm not quite sure what to do other than I guess we file the report. And, Mayor, y'all got to straighten this up. I mean, you know, to make a one-time mistake for a relatively small amount of money, you know, we're okay. We know you can work it out, but you've got to straighten this out. And if you need to get help from our friends over here with the Municipal League, they maybe can help you get that done.
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
52:58
Yes, sir. And we're certain that we work with the Municipal League, we attend the Municipal League meetings, and also we have reached out to our attorney. We did have a city attorney, and of course, they moved. He moved to Benton.
Speaker 170
53:11
But we're in the process of getting or retaining another city attorney. I think that'd be a great idea. Representative Gene. This is
Representative Lane Jean
Unverified
53:21
not in the same vein as what we've done before with the 60-day clock. They haven't got that far yet or what?
That's a staff question. We're not there yet. We're not there yet. Well, I would.
Should we defer this report then? I would say defer it because this. Hold on just a second, Representative. I understand that the 24 and 25 will be done soon, so I think it would be in
Representative Lane Jean
Unverified
53:54
order. Without objection, we will defer these reports. Because, Mayor, we've got to get somebody's attention. This is the city of Strong's taxpayer money that's missing, and they deserve better than that.
Okay. Thank you. Without objection, this will be deferred to the March meeting, which means you might want to
come back and give us a progress report, Mayor. Okay. All right. Thank you. Where are
Speaker 10
54:21
we now, Ms. Gassel? Okay. Excuse me. Okay, moving on to page 8. There are 13 reports that are being referred to the prosecuting attorney and the Attorney General. First is an investigative report on the Faulkner County Fair Association, a review of selected transactions for the period January 1, 23 through December 31 of 24.
Speaker 105
54:42
And we have Michelle Atchley here. Thank you. Okay. Ms. Atchley, you're recognized. Thank you. Be
Representative Nicole Clowney
Unverified
54:51
careful. That's my hometown, you know. This report is issued in response to requests from the 20th Judicial District Prosecute and Attorney for audit to review selected transactions of the Faulkner County Fair and Livestock Exposition. Our review covered the period January 1 of 23 through December 31st of 24. The objectives of the review were to determine if revenue was properly deposited, determine the selected disbursements for proper purposes, and assess internal controls for adequacy.
Faulkner County Fair and Livestock is a non-profit corporation that sponsors the annual Faulkner County Fair. It is governed by a four-member executive board of directors, and funding consists primarily of fair proceeds and some funding from the state and the county. The results of our review is that staff confirmed that the revenues obtained from the state and the county were properly deposited into bank accounts, Revenue from the sale of carnival ride tickets, armbands, and parking fees were not deposited daily,
and deposits made exceeded total revenues reflected on their records. However, records for proceeds from booth rentals, ad sales, food vendors, livestock entry fees, camping fees, etc. were not provided. Therefore, audit staff was unable to determine the total amount of revenue that should have been deposited. Review of selected disbursements revealed questionable disbursements totaling $21,741, $8,000 a little over $8,100 in undocumented or inadequately documented cash withdrawals,
and $2,300 in undocumented payments to individuals and vendors. There was also $10,650 for donations and $668 for flowers. The Fair and Livestock is a non-profit corporation. However, since public and private funds were commingled, these disbursements appear to be in conflict with Arkansas Constitution as interpreted by the Attorney General. In addition, the Fair and Livestock paid the carnival vendor $100,000 in 2023 and $150,000 in 2024 in cash and didn't adequately document those payments.
However, our staff was able to confirm with the carnival vendor that all cash payments were received. Our review identified internal control deficiencies that we addressed with the board president who indicated these matters would be corrected and that the board would provide better fiscal oversight in the future. This report has been forwarded to the 20th Judicial District Prosecuting Attorney and the
Attorney General. Thank you, Ms. Ashley. Any questions?
Speaker 204
57:35
Representative Bride. Boy, this is serious right here.
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
57:42
I mean, these little fairs across our state, they're barely making it. And that's a -- This
Speaker 238
57:49
is pretty good-sized fair. This is Conaway. This
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
57:52
is big. Big fair. Well, it's important. It's important. And, you know, when you mess up this kind of money, this can have an impact on that fair. And I'm going to tell you all, our fairs are having a hard time as it is.
So I believe that we need to be
serious about this. Thank you all. Thank you, Representative Wright. Let me comment, full disclosure. I spoke with the chairman of their board, and he explained some of the accounting mistakes that they made, the commingling of the private funds, and generally that's donations that are made for prizes. Correct me if I'm wrong on any of this, but I don't think the net result was anything going where we're concerned that it shouldn't have gone.
But one of the things he mentioned is they were cited for a daily deposit wasn't made every day of the farewell. They made the deposit on Saturday, but it wasn't posted till Monday, so that shows up as you were late. But hopefully we can recognize that that kind of thing is not the same as not posting in a timely manner. But, Representative Ryder, your point is very well taken, and we've got to stay on top of this.
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
59:15
Representative Gene. And I don't guess anybody with the fair is here, is it? I don't believe so. Is Mr. Jones here?
Speaker 244
59:27
Well, this is you, Mr. Chairman, or staff. Well, isn't it
Representative Lane Jean
Unverified
59:33
unusual to pay these carnival rides in cash, $100,000 and $150,000 in cash, not a check? That's a
good question. That's maybe, is that, Ms. Ashley, is that
a violation by paying them?
Is that normal practice for fairs?
Speaker 247
59:50
The explanation we were given is that the carnival closes up on a Saturday night, and they are wanting their payment on Sunday. And then
Representative Lane Jean
Unverified
1:00:04
Well, they make deposits all week, and they could have the money. I don't know. I don't pass the smell
Speaker 204
1:00:11
test. Very good point, sir. Anyway. Representative Breyer, you're recognized. You know, y'all, one thing that really worries me about this,
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
1:00:20
We have a lot of children, you know, teenagers, that are involved with, you know, judging cows, judging hawks, things that's agriculture. And boy, you know, when you go messing with something like
this right here, this is affecting our young folks. So, I don't know, this worries me. This
is why we refer things to the local prosecutor and the attorney general. Any other questions or comments about the Partner County Fair and Livestock Exposition?
Speaker 81
1:00:58
Can we file this one? Okay. Without objection,
we'll file this report. We'll see what the AG and the prosecutors are. I have both of them on speed dial if we have any more questions. All right. Please proceed, Ms. Gassel. Okay. Thank you, Mr.
Speaker 10
1:01:14
Chair. So we are still in reports that are referred to the prosecuting attorney and attorney general. We are on page 11. The city of Brooklyn for the year ending December 31st, 2024. This finding is under the mayor.
The city discovered that an employee's payroll direct deposit totaling $782 had been fraudulently diverted to another bank account after the employee contacted the city about not receiving their direct deposit. It was determined that the city made the direct deposit change after receiving an email request from what appeared to be the employee's email account without properly verifying the authenticity of the change request. The financial institution was notified, however, the city was unable to recover the funds.
If there are no questions, we recommend we file
this report. In a case like that, does the bank have some kind
of culpability or, I mean, usually in a case like that, banks make it good and then they've got an insurance policy to cover that. Does anybody have any knowledge or comment about that? But you could see how, I mean, this is a fraud thing. And someone got that person's name and said, hey, I'm John Doe,
Speaker 168
1:02:32
and I want you to transfer my direct deposit from that bank to this bank. And that was obviously fraudulent. But this appears
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
1:02:40
to be this was a city issue, a city error. The city did it. It wasn't directed to the bank. It was somebody. But that someone at
the city perhaps thought that was really that person asking for it. That's right. So it was a city error. The city was defrauded, not the bank. Okay. And I understand, Representative Dalby, I just, if y'all had a bank fraud thing, I mean, like I had my debit card hacked and all that, I mean, you see how there's, the crooks are coming up with more and more better ways to cheat you, so I just, I guess I'm a little sympathetic, but that doesn't mean we don't need to follow up on it.
Any questions? If not, we'll file this report. Yes, sir. Thank
Speaker 10
1:03:30
you, Mr. Chair. If we can skip to page 13. We have the City of Mineral Springs, December 31st, 24 and 23. The finding is under the Mayor and Recorder Treasurer. As of report date, Arkansas Legislative Audit and Law Enforcement Agency are investigating certain financial transactions of the city that will be included in a subsequent report.
In non-compliance with Arkansas Constitution, the city transferred the balance of the cemetery fund, totaling over $92,000 to the Mineral Springs Cemetery, a non-profit organization without a contract for services. The city made loans to employees totaling $39.50 and $12.50 in 2024 and 2023, respectively, and allowed employees to repay the city through subsequent payroll deductions. At December 31st, 24 and 23, unpaid loans to the employees totaled $2,400 and $1,000, respectively.
Of these loans, $1,850 and $250 were paid from water and sewer funds in 24 and 23, respectively. The remaining portions were paid from the city accounts. For the year ended December 31st, 24, we noted overpayments to the mayor totaling $1,200 and to city council members totaling $1,800 or $300 each due to an extra payroll check being issued in 2024. A review of travel disbursements revealed that supporting documentation
was not maintained for disbursements of $720 and $1,013 in 2024 and 2023. Additionally, meal reimbursements of $280 were paid for daily, non-overnight travel in 2024. If there are no questions, the staff recommends we file. Any
Speaker 81
1:05:22
questions? Without objection, we file the report.
Speaker 196
1:05:34
Oh, come on, folks. If you want a question,
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
1:05:39
I'll let you talk. We're just talking amongst ourselves. We just shake our heads, Mr. Chair, that cities, we see this a lot. We see the same
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
1:05:50
over again. You're right. Yes, ma'am. And it's just frustrating. It is frustrating. So I think that's what Representative Steinwald and I were frustrated. I
understand. Someone asked, what do we do in this committee? And I said, we tell mayors and county judges that you can't take
your road turn back and stick it in your general fund and spend it.
I mean, I know that's a silly thing to say, but we
do an awful lot of that, as you well know. And you can't loan money. You're not a bank. That's right. And some of this, as you pointed out, it's not just a good idea. It's in the Constitution. They're not supposed to do that. So, okay. Well, anyone that's watching on the live stream,
just know that we're just trying to enforce those constitutional provisions. Okay, please proceed,
Speaker 10
1:06:35
Ms. Gensler. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Continuing on page 14, the town of Rondo for the year ended December 31st, 2024.
The findings are under the mayor and the treasurer. Adequate supporting documentation was not provided for tested disbursements of $2,169 in noncompliance with Arkansas Code. 716 were fuel purchases that, according to the mayor and recorder treasurer, were partially placed in their personal vehicles without a documented business purpose. $1,453 in undocumented reimbursements were to the recorder treasurer. Without supporting documentation, a business purpose of these expenditures could not be determined.
this is a repeat finding. While citing fixed assets, we were unable to locate three of the four computers on their fixed asset listing. Additionally, we were unable to match the one computer the town had in its custody to the listing due to inadequate serial numbers on the listing in non-compliance with code. Town officials were unable to provide an explanation for the missing computers. We have with us the recorder treasurer today. However, the mayor was unable
to attend due to illness. Okay. Would
the recorder treasurer come forward? Thank you, ma'am. Come to the end of the table and make sure your
Robin Moppet-Bowen
Unverified
1:08:07
microphone's on and identify yourself the record. Hi, my name is Robin Moppet-Bowen. I'm from CRT there at Rondo. Okay.
Speaker 166
1:08:14
Can you respond to all this, Ms. Bowen? Yes.
Speaker 268
1:08:18
We'll start with the last thing that she had mentioned.
I located the obsolete computer, it was in storage that had been in there since I guess 23. It was my error that I didn't take it off the inventory list. I didn't know I was supposed to, but that had already been obsoleted, but they didn't tell anybody where it was. Did you secure the hard drive or any data? It was
Speaker 271
1:08:43
my monitor is all that was there. Okay, that's
Speaker 266
1:08:50
fine. All right, go ahead, I'm sorry.
Speaker 268
1:08:52
And the other two were laptops, and the serial numbers are printed, and that was in a box. And all the—I'm just shaking, I'm sorry. And all the information that would have been a repeat was in a box for our receipts, and I got all those done for this finding. I believe the auditor became ill, and they were in the trunk of her car.
But anyway, I got all those done up and matched them up. So I think we're pretty much back up to par on everything. So you
found the computer. It was obsolete, and it was like in a
Speaker 268
1:09:37
closet. It was in a storage building. I didn't know where it was when one of the auditors came, of course, on our sightings. And she asked me about it because it was supposed to be in the fire department. Well, we have a gentleman that's been there for unteen years. He knows everything, but he couldn't remember.
He didn't remember anything about the computer, and they had moved it into a storage
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
1:10:06
questions for Ms. Bill? Representative Rye. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ma'am, this $716 for fuel purposes for personal vehicles, can you explain that
Speaker 268
1:10:17
one? Yes. When I came on in 20—well, the end of 23, I suppose the car—there was a charge card there at the same place that they got for the city diesel and for their gasoline, for the tractors and the mowers to maintain, you know, the grounds.
And so we had used the charge card. The mayor used the charge card. I used the charge card for our fuel. We didn't know. We had come on. No one told us. There was no policy. I didn't know that was not the way they had done it. The committee didn't change it. So that's something that I was, I mean, I had been in the process of getting done as a policy where that fuel would not be used there. We had the receipts for them, but it was in, that's how it was used. Follow up and go right ahead.
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
1:11:09
Yes, ma'am, but it says for personal vehicles. That's
Speaker 268
1:11:11
what I'm talking about. We don't have personal vehicles that we can drive. We have to use our own vehicles. Yes, ma'am, but I mean, where are we talking about driving to? I have to, I'd go to Stuttgart two times a month is where our bank is, and we're in Rondo. That's where it's always been established, and it hasn't been moved, and I haven't changed that. Or it's not up to me to change that.
Speaker 277
1:11:39
It's committed to change it. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Okay, other
questions? Okay, if everyone agrees we can file this one or we can defer and have the mayor come back if you want. What's the will of committee? Motion by Representative Dalby, is there a second? Representative Beck, any discussion? All in favor say aye. Opposed? Okay, we file. Thank you ma'am for coming. Thank you.
Speaker 10
1:12:11
Okay, next, Ms. Gassel. Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair. Continuing on page 15, the City of Waldo for the years ending December 31st, 24 and 23. Under the Mayor and Recorder Treasurer, the City issued salary overpayments of $2,000 to the Mayor in both 24 and 23 in noncompliance with Arkansas Code. The approved salary was $24,000 annually. However, biweekly payments of $1,000 were made, resulting in two extra payments each year.
Speaker 259
1:12:43
If there are no questions, staff recommends we
file. Any questions? I was just thinking, as many of you know, our state has gone from 24 payments a year to 26 payments a year. So I just, I guess I'm sympathetic because of that, but at least it's easy to know that we get paid on the same every two weeks on a Wednesday. I tend to get my check. So, okay. Without objection, it'll be filed.
Speaker 30
1:13:15
Please proceed, ma'am. Okay. Continuing on page 15, Columbia County
Speaker 10
1:13:20
for the year ending December 31st, 2024. Under the county judge, the county paid $9,600 to an employee for floodplain management services using a contract for services. However, an authorizing ordinance was not enacted as required by code. If there are no questions, staff recommends we file. Any questions? Representative Jimmy, you got a question?
I guess he doesn't. I was just giving you the courtesy. If you're going to insist. Well, it's your county. I just wanted to give you an opportunity to
Representative Lane Jean
Unverified
1:13:53
comment. You're recognized. Nobody from Columbia County I don't see here, right? No, sir. I don't believe so. Who was the floodplain manager? Do y'all have any? I do not have that name in
Speaker 258
1:14:04
front of me. Well, if you can privately get it to me, I'd like it. Yes, sir. Thank you. Okay,
thank you. Any other questions? Okay, if no further questions, without objection, we'll file that one.
Speaker 284
1:14:16
Please proceed, ma'am. All right. On page 16, the next six reports are private water sewer
Speaker 10
1:14:23
reports. The first two, Antoine Water System for the year ending December 31st, 24 and 23. Daily receipt information for 24 and 23 was not available. This has been turned over to the PA and prosecuting attorney, attorney general, and staff recommends we file
Speaker 285
1:14:42
these reports. Without objection, they're filed.
Speaker 284
1:14:46
Elaine, Municipal Water Works, December 31st, 2023. We found that proper records were not
Speaker 10
1:14:52
kept and there was no cash receipts journal provided to compare to the deposits per the proof of cash. In addition, customer payments were not able to be traced to the account's receivable ledger and to deposit in billing documents due to lack of proper documentation. We found that proper records were not kept for customer billings and adjustments. We've received appropriate responses, and staff recommends we file these.
Speaker 284
1:15:18
Without objection, that we file. The next three, Thornton Water Works, June 30, 2024. The following deposits do not match
Speaker 10
1:15:29
the total of the corresponding daily receipt report. These total about $51.45. We have not received a response, but we did reach out to the CPA firm, as we did previously, to gather additional information. These have been turned over to the prosecuting attorney and attorney general, and we recommend we defer.
Without objection, these will be deferred. Van Buren County Public Water Authority. Cash receipts were not prepared for six customer payments, but the cash was included in the ten deposits tested. The total of cash payments not included in the cash receipts was over $619, and the total deposits tested were over $12,000. Public Water Authority did not have procedures in place for approval of customer adjustments during 2024. We have not received responses, and we recommend we defer this report.
Without objection, it will be deferred. West Saline Water Users Association for the year ending December 31st, 2024. We noted 14 debit card transactions initiated by an employee were not adequately documented. We have not received responses, and staff recommends we defer this report. Without objection, it will be deferred. Okay, on page 17, we have seven reports with repeat findings.
Speaker 284
1:16:55
First is the City of Carlisle for the year ending December 31, 2024. Under the Mayor and Clerk Treasurer, Arkansas Code requires management to maintain financial records.
Speaker 10
1:17:10
The financial records contain omissions and errors that are considered material, as specified below. The general fund financial records contain misstatements in assets, liabilities, fund balance, revenues, expenditures, and note disclosures in the amounts of approximately $235,000, $115,000, $20,000, $298,000, $302,000, and $366,000, respectively, due to posting errors and unrecorded transactions.
The other funds in the aggregate financial records contain misstatements in assets, revenues, expenditures, and note disclosures, and the amounts of approximately $163,000, $112,000, $59,000, and $172,000, respectively, due to posting errors and omissions. This is a repeat finding. We have the clerk treasurer with us here today. Would you come forward, ma'am? Or is she the mayor? I am. Why
don't you join her, mayor? We may have questions for both of you.
Please make yourselves comfortable and introduce yourself for the record. You might want to hit the button to turn
Speaker 291
1:18:15
the microphone on, Mayor. I'm Sissy Engel. I'm
Speaker 293
1:18:19
the Clerk-Treasurer at the City of Carlisle. And I'm John Plaskin. I've been mayor since January 1,
Speaker 262
1:18:26
2025. Okay. Thank you. Mayor, you want to go first? Yeah,
Speaker 293
1:18:32
you go first. These findings are absolutely repeat from 24, but they actually go back even further to 2018.
We have had a previous treasurer, clerk treasurer, who was there in 2018, left because of a disagreement. And then we hired her assistant as the clerk treasurer from 2018 through 2022. And then the mayor at that time hired the previous clerk back. Mistakes continued.
That's been a problem. Sissy was hired in May of 23 to assist the present treasurer at that time and was given no training. That treasurer left in December of 23, or no, it was May of 23, just shortly thereafter. And Sissy became the treasurer at that point in time with no trailer. So our 23 audit was negligent of these same sightings, but may I just say they were in the hundreds of thousands, closer to millions at that point in time because of previous findings that dated back to 2018.
Speaker 105
1:20:00
So, Mayor, you're saying that those concerning numbers I'm looking at have actually reduced drastically. Decreased 15 times what they were. Well, I mean, it's still concerning. That's a lot of money to get in six figures in a small town. On the other hand, it beats being in the seven figures. That's
Speaker 293
1:20:17
correct. Okay. But Sissy has taken this over and has had training with Municipal League, has gotten a lot of her hours already completed through there. She has gotten with the CSA, the software you all were talking about. That was part of our problem prior to that.
I'd been on the board, and we were trying to initiate getting new software, The software we had was antiquated, and I was pretty instrumental in asking us to get to this new CSA software. It just didn't happen until that treasurer and the mayor left. We have CSA software now. Sissy has been with the president of the company, talking to him, getting training. She has totally cleaned everything up, and these are the only findings we have.
There were other findings prior to this, of course. It looks like you're making progress. We have made significant progress. This is the only finding we had. There were several before that, but this is the only finding we had, and it is being corrected, I assure you. And I'm doing my best to stay on top of it, and Sissy has been on top of it. And I want to assure the committee that our 25 audit will be cleaned up as best as we
We can, but I think we'll be pretty well on target to get everything correct. I know our auditors came in and they said, we can't believe how awesome this looks now compared to what it had been previous years. So I think they recognize that we're on track. I know I'm going to stay on track, and Sissy is dedicated to continue doing that as well. I apologize for us having to be presented and waste your time today.
but we are working on it and we're trying to get this all taken care
Speaker 201
1:22:08
of. Thank you, Mayor. I think that's
about as good of a response as we could accept. And I want to thank you for seeing these problems that you're willing to step forward and serve in that capacity. So both of you, thank you for that. Any other questions for the mayor or the recorder treasurer? If not, should we
go ahead? Can we go ahead and file?
Okay, then without objection, this will be filed. Thank you for coming. Thank
Speaker 10
1:22:41
you. Okay, please proceed, Ms. Gassman. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Moving on to the bottom of page 17, the town of Biggers for the year ended December 31st, 2024. The mayor called. He is unable to attend, also due to sickness, and staff
Speaker 1
1:22:57
recommends we defer this report. Without objection, it will
Speaker 297
1:23:01
be deferred. Let's continue. Okay. Page 18, the city of Cato Valley.
Cato Valley. Cato. I knew I
Speaker 284
1:23:09
was going to get that back room. Sorry. December 31, 2024,
Speaker 10
1:23:14
under the recorder treasurer, the following CDs and interests were not receded and recorded in the financial statements in noncompliance with code. The general fund, $219,000 in CDs and $46,000 in interest. Street fine, $57,000 in CDs and over $10,000 in interest. The fire department fine, over $63,000 in CDs and $18,000 in interest.
And the advertising and promotion commission, a $250,000 CD. This is a repeat finding, and we have the recorder treasurer here today. Okay. Come forward, ma'am. I'm a little surprised
to see that Caddo Valley has an A&P commission, but I know you've got DeGray Lake right next door. We do, and we have the Caddo River, also a
Speaker 302
1:23:57
big draw for the area. We're lucky to have both of them. Yes, ma'am. You're recognized.
Please introduce yourself for the record. I'm Debbie Robertson, and
Speaker 303
1:24:06
I'm Recorder Treasurer with the City of Caddo Valley.
Okay. So this was a second finding for us on our CDs. We have paid off all of our loans in the last few years, and we've been able to put some CD money away in each account. It's a second finding only because of a timing issue. We purchased the CDs in October of 2022, and we were audited on those CDs in November of 23. We did not receive that money because we were on a cash accounting system, and that does
not require us to receive CD money until it's obtained by us. Meaning when it's cashed? Yes, sir. Okay. Now, my auditor and I do not agree on that, and so I tried to impress upon her that that That is not the type of accounting system that we're using. We're not using an accrual system because I don't have the authority of the city council which would take either an ordinance or a yearly resolution for us to do that. So we stick with what the Arkansas Accounting Municipal Code says and that that CD interest
is only receded upon maturity. She did write us up for that. That report went into effect, well, she wrote us up, I'm sorry, she wrote us up at the end of the year, but a whole year had gone by of that CD drawing that same interest by the time she caught it. So I was not only two months behind for the year that she cited that. The next year, I also, it had already gone by. It was about 14 months then. Yes, sir, it had already gone by. So it resulted in two. I still, to this day, feel like she is in error holding us to a standard of accrual interest
that that is not what our city is allowed to do under Arkansas Municipal Accounting Code.
Speaker 266
1:25:58
Let's talk about that a minute. We've got a lot of smart accountants here, including our legislative auditor
sitting in the back row. Talking to a speech pathologist. And I just want y'all, somebody, I'm looking, I don't care. Kevin, you pick who you want or come up yourself or whatever. But I just like, I think our lady here has a good question. I just want to hear, even if it's not
a definitive answer, just some discussion.
Speaker 123
1:26:29
And identify yourself with the record, obviously.
Speaker 308
1:26:31
Kevin White, legislative auditor. I will defer on this one to
Speaker 309
1:26:34
my city-county experts, which I have in the room. Joe Archer is going to be my
Speaker 196
1:26:40
best man to answer this question. I know he
Speaker 201
1:26:42
is, so you're recognized, Mr. Archer. Joe Archer's staff. Mayor, it appears that all
Speaker 310
1:26:47
the ballots is recorded, because that's what the finance is, the ballots aren't there.
Speaker 303
1:26:52
She not only wanted us to, the first year she said, just receipt the interest. And I said, I do not have journals to receipt those in.
She said, go get some dummy receipt books and receipt them. And I said, and you're telling me that's all I have to do, and you will be satisfied with that. She said, yes. This last year, she came back and wrote me up, and she said, you didn't receipt it, but you did not put it on your financial statement. And I said, I was not told to put it on a financial statement. I would have argued that account, that question even harder, because that skews all of my interest. That interest is not earned and is not the CD's until that CD matures.
Once it matures, if we cash it in, then I make a receipt for the principal and a receipt for the interest, and I put it back into the respective account that it came out of. If she wanted me to place that earned interest on my financial statement each month, and it won't reconcile to my bank activity, it skews my results. And that's not, to me, correct reporting. And I tried to explain that to her. If we use an accrual system or even a modified accrual system, that would be appropriate.
But we do not have an ordinance nor a resolution, nor do my city council members want us to do that. They want accurate numbers. And we're on a, as we receive cash and as we spend cash, system.
Speaker 312
1:28:26
Well, I think we're splitting hairs over available funds and funds of the city. Available funds, you are correct. Those funds wouldn't be
Speaker 314
1:28:35
available for y'all to spend because they're tied up in a CD that hadn't matured yet.
Speaker 315
1:28:41
But they are funds of the city that needs to be recognized as far as the
Speaker 303
1:28:48
fund balance and assets of the city. We would not mind tracking them, but that's just informational. That has no bearing on my financial statement, which it renders my accounts wrong. And based on Arkansas Municipal Code, it says I am to receive money
when it's received. That means when that CD matures. Yes, ma'am. I assume received means from an
outside source, not something that is, in this case, a CD that the city already owns
Speaker 196
1:29:20
and was receded when that revenue was there. And can we clarify that a little bit?
Speaker 314
1:29:27
Yes, Mr. Chair. The funds that, I mean, for example, let's say that it's a year-long CD that was purchased on June 30th, which means it wouldn't mature until the next June 30th. So December 31st, more than likely, the bank has notified you on a quarterly basis that it has accrued two interest payments at the end of September and the end of December.
Those two would be recognizable and recordable, but let's say it was at July and then it would be October and January. The October interest payment would be recordable and recognizable, but the one in February would not because it wouldn't be. So
Speaker 315
1:30:04
those two months would not be because they hadn't notified you yet. Then my question
Speaker 303
1:30:10
to you would be, if I cashed that in early and was penalized, it skews all the interest at that point. That is inaccurate reporting.
Speaker 314
1:30:21
You'd post the expenditure for the penalty, on a cash basis, that penalty would be recognized on the day you cashed it
Speaker 315
1:30:29
in, which would be mid-year, whenever, and that would be an expense that would be recognizable
Speaker 303
1:30:36
for that action you took. So my question to you would be, based on a cash journal system, it's permissible and based on Arkansas Municipal Accounting to receipt interest on CDs that I have not earned yet and
Speaker 234
1:30:53
apply it to my financial statements on each month?
Speaker 314
1:30:57
Once you get a notice from the bank that says you've earned it, yes. So if it's a quarterly posting to that CD, then yes. If it's not been earned yet, let's say it's a three-month quarter, November and December would not be postable because it wouldn't be earned until the end of January for that quarter. But the one
Speaker 303
1:31:18
received for the quarters during the year. Okay. Okay. Then I only have one current CD that will report quarterly. I had to ask them to figure and send me monthly interest, but only one CD out of ten.
Is that right? Probably have 10 CDs reported quarterly, all the rest were annual. If they
Speaker 314
1:31:39
do not post it or there's not something that the bank provided you then you are correct. But if they provide you with a notice or a cruel statement then it needs to be receded and posted in that year. But if they just ignore you for the entire year until October of the next year, then you're correct. That
Speaker 303
1:31:59
is exactly, I have one CD and why that one pays quarterly I have no idea.
Speaker 317
1:32:04
The rest, or they report quarterly. I can't say they pay quarterly. They report quarterly.
Speaker 314
1:32:11
Your financial statements that you provided us included the principal at the end of the year of all these CDs. They were in there as cash on there. Ask me that again. I'm sorry. All the principal. You went and bought a CD in June for $250,000. You have a ledger that says we have $250,000 worth of money in the bank, and that's in your financial statements.
because I think that's part of the problem. The interest is only part of this. You're not reflecting the principle as well as my understanding. And the principle has to be, if it's in your name in the bank, the principle of these CDs need to be included on your financial statements or the reader of your financial statements aren't getting the full picture of what the city of Cato Valley has in assets. And let
Speaker 303
1:32:56
me introduce you. This is Jamie Henson, and she's my administrative assistant. So she does the actual paperwork for us. Turn your microphone on.
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
1:33:04
I apologize. I just started working for Caddo Valley in September. No one died. No one died. No one died. I just came to work there and three weeks later I met our auditor. So I apologize for that. We have, I have gone in and I have entered, I requested the bank to give us monthly amounts. of amounts. Dollar amounts. And I have gone in and spent a lot of time making sure that every
month's interest was placed into our accounts. And as she said, we are, when we report that, it's saying we have that money actively in, we'll just say in our general fund. In our general fund, we have two CDs. We have a savings account and we have a checking account. When we run our monthly report all that money goes into our general fund report. The CD money is not in our active bank
account that we can access. And that's what we're arguing that that's skewing our amount. Now, I can run a report that says there's $250,000 in this one. Here's how much receipt, how much was receded in, and here's your balance currently. I can run a report now that says that
Speaker 337
1:34:27
prior to that we were just writing them in a receipt book. Okay. I think
Speaker 323
1:34:33
the issue is that the principal, the main issue is
Speaker 315
1:34:37
that the principal value of these CDs were not reflected as assets of the
city and the financial statements that we've got. Is
Speaker 303
1:34:46
that correct? That's probably true. Okay. But I'm not for sure how to go about doing that when that money is not in that fund anymore. It's
Speaker 312
1:34:54
sitting in a CD in another bank. You keep a separate journal that says investments and then And we could combine those together for you on your, when we combine
Speaker 314
1:35:02
your financial statements. But, you know, that is the, if the reader of a financial statement for the city of Cattle Valley needs to know that you've got $200,000, $300,000 in reserves or something there, because the financial statements we were getting did not reflect that money as being,
and again, it's back to difference between available and actually belonging to the city. You're operating on availability from what I understand, But it's the actual money that is in the custody of the city at that 31st. And that may not be available. It may be restricted because the bank's got a restriction on it. But it still needs to be reflected in your financial statements. You can name it CD with a maturity date. So for y'all's purposes, you know it's not readily available. But for any lending institution or someone that's looking at y'all's fund ballots,
Speaker 201
1:35:52
they would know that you had that money. And
Speaker 314
1:35:57
it is an asset of the CD. Right, exactly. So the interest, you can post it at the end of each CD. I mean, when it matures or when they post it. If they post that CD quarterly, that's fine. But when they do post it to the CD, it needs to be receipted. If it's after the year end, that's
Speaker 340
1:36:16
fine. But the principle on it is very important because those numbers are material enough
Speaker 328
1:36:21
to skew your financial statements. Okay, so the question on that
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
1:36:24
is, because we would like to keep a clean book that shows the CD interest over here and our current actual what we get every month over here.
So can we keep a spreadsheet that says, here's how much this CD costs, or how much we put in for the CD, here's how much interest it's accruing, here's our current
Speaker 337
1:36:44
balance. is that acceptable to add to our city council financial statements? That is fine as long
Speaker 342
1:36:51
as each CD is designated to which fund it belongs to. So if you've
Speaker 314
1:36:56
got a general fund CD and a street fund CD, as long as that ledger indicates general fund CD and we can combine the two,
we do that all the time. And I've already done that. As if it were cash in a checking account on those funds. Okay,
Representative Stan Berry
Unverified
1:37:18
thank you both. Any other questions? Thank you Mr. Chairman. I would just like to applaud Cattle Valley for having those CDs and having this problem that we just discussed. There you go. That's what
Speaker 348
1:37:30
you wanted to hear. When they skipped the letter I thought I had bragging rights.
Representative Stan Berry
Unverified
1:37:35
Not very many situations that we talk about in here. Well, let's just
say these two ladies are very forthcoming on information that helps us do our job, and I appreciate both of you on this. Thank you very much. Any questions or any other comments on Caddo Alley? Okay, without objection, we'll file a report. Thank you for coming. Go right ahead, Ms. Gasway.
Speaker 297
1:38:06
Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Continuing on page 21, the
Speaker 284
1:38:13
city of Holly Grove, did the treasurer, Ms. Ruthie Foster, is she here
Speaker 39
1:38:18
today? She did not sign in. She had stated she was coming. Well,
then we will defer this to March without objection. Okay. Okay, thank you. Next. Next
Speaker 284
1:38:35
on page 22 is Prairie County.
For the year ending December
Speaker 10
1:38:40
31st, 2024, the findings under the county judge and the county circuit clerk. During our recap of the county's 24 budget, the following issues were noted. The final general and road fund amended budgets approved by the quorum court did not agree with the final budget posted to the appropriations journal in noncompliance with code. Road fund expenditures exceeded budgeted appropriations by $155,000 or 8% in noncompliance with code.
These are repeat findings, and the judge and county circuit clerk are both here.
Would y'all please introduce yourselves? I'm
county clerk. Lawrence Holloway, judge. Okay, and full disclosure, Ms. Hale is my very dear friend, So I don't want anyone to think I'm being overly solicitous, but she is a wonderful lady and is my friend.
Thank you. Can you all please explain what went on here? Because this has to do with your actual budget and what was posted, and you didn't amend it properly.
Speaker 356
1:39:46
Can you all explain that? Yeah, let me start back a ways to put this in perspective. at the beginning of 24 road had two mac trucks that had that hauled our gravel and we didn't hear from the mac company so i called them got in touch with them
Speaker 358
1:40:07
and found that they had no trucks available to replace our old ones and they wanted us to sign an extension
for the rest of the year which was about 10 11 months and i said not without a warranty they later offered us a truck in april and one in june excuse
Speaker 360
1:40:28
me judge decided to go these leased trucks yeah yeah lease purchase okay that's fine go right ahead i'm sorry
Speaker 362
1:40:35
i just want to clarify that thank you uh anyhow that's
Speaker 358
1:40:39
uh we we took that option in uh and uh let me tell this in january of 24 we had a small or a pretty good little snow ice storm and a pretty good freeze later
this caused many of our well-travel roads gravel roads to have soft spots and they got pretty bad in places so we had to we our trucks the old trucks we were still using were breaking down pretty regular so i had to hire some haul hauling done and this the rock request was sort of what What we needed was just increasing by the day.
Anyhow, hired the rock haulers to try to keep up with the demand on the yard. And this ran up pretty fast. So I can't remember, May, June, I saw that I was gonna run out of money in the road rock fund. So I talked with the auditors about the coming problem. And we had a CD, I don't know how much interest is in it, but we had a $200,000 CD, or have one, in a row that's not budgeted.
The auditor said when I talked to her that the board would have to cash the CD to cover that. So when I approached the board about this, they would not cash the CD. When the new Max came in, I stopped the hired hauling. And also, at that time, we had been given County General, which had problems, our half of the sales tax money.
And so, at that particular time when this
Speaker 356
1:42:33
all popped up, I took back our sales tax money to go back into County Row, and we had paid them about $200,000, a little more. in the last year from 23 to 24. So that's how we got to this point. They wouldn't cash the CD, so I run over. And how could I tell a taxpayer that I had to let them stay stuck in the mud hole or
I couldn't help them, and that's not what I'm there for. We had the money in CD that could have covered $155,000. So, Mayor, the idea was that you had the money sitting
there, but you had to have an action by the court to take that and move it over. Is that correct? Yes. And they didn't want to do that. And they didn't want to do
Speaker 356
1:43:27
it. Which I didn't want to cash the CD either. Well, I mean, you do what
Speaker 266
1:43:30
you have to do. You know, it's like a little savings account for the road fund.
Yeah, it's still there. It's your money. As Mr. Archer made clear of that, you know, it's an asset of the county. But we've got a law that says that if they're going to do something with it, they'd have to amend the budget and recognize that. Do you need to be recognized, Representative McElroy?
Representative Mark D. McElroy
Unverified
1:43:56
You are recognized. Thank you, sir. I was just going to ask him, did y'all try to amend the budget after the ice storm?
Speaker 356
1:44:05
Well, I mean, yeah, after the ice storm. I mean, after you. Yeah, I'm getting my years mixed up, but the 24, again, I asked them to cache
Speaker 103
1:44:16
the CD that we needed it, and so they wouldn't do it. But I
Representative Mark D. McElroy
Unverified
1:44:21
think you hit on it, Mr. Chair, that I think if they amend the budget after they've exceeded it, it would
have been all right. I think it's just, I'm not sure. Well, we can't make JPs do what they ought to do, but you've been a county judge, Representative McElroy.
You know how that all works. But that was where I was headed on that, is that it would require that amendment to the budget. And
Speaker 196
1:44:48
maybe we can educate them a little bit about how that's important. Also, I
Speaker 372
1:44:54
want to add some of that amount. We have three leases with Caterpillar. And we had an excavator that had been returned, but they were still billing the judge's office for it. So, yeah, I was still getting bills. So I don't know who dropped the ball between when it was returned to Caterpillar.
I don't know. So I personally tracked down the head guy of Caterpillar, which is Alan Gassaway. And I was telling him about the situation after it was brought to my attention. And so he looked into it with his team. He said, I'll have to look into it. And I was calling him on a daily basis because I couldn't sleep. because this is $78,666.27, and I didn't sleep until I recovered all that money. So he checked my story, and everything checked out, and I received a full refund check for that amount.
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
1:45:47
Now that's, when you say for Caterpillar, is that Riggs? Is that here in Little
Representative Wayne Long
Unverified
1:45:52
Rock? Yes, sir. Okay. And I purchased it, I mean, that was my first purchase of equipment in March of 23. Okay. And what, yeah, I don't.
Speaker 372
1:46:02
But now my payroll clerk and myself are watching serial numbers before
Speaker 371
1:46:06
we pay anything. So that will not happen again. Okay.
Speaker 376
1:46:09
Thank you, Ms. Hale. I know you'll do it right. Thank you. Any other questions? I'm watching it on
Speaker 123
1:46:15
my hand. Any other questions for the judge and Ms. Hale?
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
1:46:19
Representative Dolleby. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank
you all for being here today. I was doing my best to try to follow, Mayor, what
you were saying. Judge. I'm sorry, County Judge,
I apologize, but I kind of got lost. And these findings were noted in two other reports. So we're three years down the road
with the same type of findings.
The other was County General, and that's
Speaker 356
1:46:59
fined on the road too, but this was in the road, specifically in road. See, I was given County General, I gave them my half of the sales tax and started in 23 and into 24 wasn't my problem here. I was running out of money in the road, which was in good shape, but I gave them over $200,000. So when I see my money was short in the road, I took it back.
I didn't ask the auditors, they might not have liked
Speaker 382
1:47:25
it, but it's my money, I took it back.
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
1:47:28
Well, and I understand, but it's not your money, and so you have to follow the
rules as set out in the code, and you do understand that now. Is that correct? Oh, yeah. I mean, you can't just move things around, and there's a reason why it's done. And we didn't move anything around. Well, or at least you just said, you know, you took it from the road fund and that kind of thing, so you just have to follow the rules.
Speaker 356
1:47:54
I'm just going by what you just testified to. We've shared money, sales tax, with county general out of road for several times, several years. If they're
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
1:48:05
short, we can give them money. And you understand
Speaker 356
1:48:10
now that that's not the way to do business? Well, that's the way we've done it for years. If county general needs funds to make the year, county road has given
Speaker 360
1:48:21
sales tax, a part of it or all of it at times.
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
1:48:25
You do understand that's a violation of the code? Aren't I
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
1:48:31
correct? Okay, Mr. Archer, you better get up here. Oh, Ms. Gassaway. Have
Speaker 387
1:48:36
I turned your mic off? Yeah, the auditor
Representative Wayne Long
Unverified
1:48:39
is the one that told me you need to give up. Hang on just a
Speaker 388
1:48:43
second. I'm asking the staff. The sales tax monies that he's referring to are general sales tax monies, so they can be moved. They can
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
1:48:52
be moved. Okay. Yes. So it's not turned back. Correct. Okay, that's where I was hearing two different things.
And so I'm thanking you, Ms. Gasway, for
letting me know that. But you don't understand, I mean, it always raises the attention
of those of us who are on this committee when the report says there's been two other previous findings. And so then it starts, we start wondering about, well, you know, it didn't get corrected the first year, Didn't get corrected the second year. Now we're in the third year. So my simple question is, are you now in the position to make sure that going forward, everything is done by the book?
Everything is done by what the law says you have to
Speaker 356
1:49:42
do. Yeah. I may not be totally sure what you're talking about, but the auditor told me that I needed
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
1:49:51
all of it. Is that where we're at? Now, my question is, do you understand that there are certain rules and regulations that you have to follow and that you cannot ignore repeated findings in three years so that next year, if we show next audit, whenever, 24, 25, whichever one y'all are on, and we're not here in three or four months with this is the fourth year of reported findings, the same findings.
I mean, it's a lot of money. Yeah, we're trying to make sure we don't do that. Okay, that's my question. Have you got those guardrails in place? Because you've heard Representative Jean say the taxpayers of Prairie County deserve a full and fair accounting of their money. It's their money. It's not our money. It's not your money. It's their money. And so that's all we're after is that the things are done correctly. And so that people know.
And I understand roads. I've lived in Arkansas my entire life. I understand that roads get in bad shape and that, you know, a county judge, you know, goes to the local diner and that's what everybody's asking you about. I understand all of that. But even with that being said, there are certain rules and procedures and regulations. And the reason why is because we don't want taxpayer money being misused. So do I have your word that that is now being corrected and will be done properly?
Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr.
Speaker 277
1:51:26
Chairman. Okay, other questions? Representative Rye. Yes,
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
1:51:29
sir. I think Representative Mark knows more about this part than I do, but you can take county general money and use it for county roads, but you cannot take county road money and use it, transfer it to general. Isn't that right? Representative Wright,
Speaker 360
1:51:48
we've got a little variable here. Y'all have a local option sales tax.
With part of that being dedicated to roads. So if it's their turn back from state, which of course is road money, then you're absolutely right, Representative Wright. But if they have it in there when they enacted their sales tax, that a portion of that would go toward roads, then it's not necessarily
so they can spend that on roads so it's of course when you get that check that comes to you electronically for road fund it can only
be spent on roads but you can general fund stuff that was specifically
outlined in your sales tax ordinance that was passed by the voters you can do that and i think that's the distinction we were talking about here am i get am i getting that right mayor and yeah that's what we're doing. Our judge, rather. I'm sorry. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Well, it came up a second ago because oftentimes Representative Rye, as you know, that's what we deal with a lot of in here where they're taking road money and spending it in general. But in this case, this was something
from their local, their taxpayers voted
for this for part of it to
Speaker 402
1:53:09
go to roads. That's either spelled out in the ordinance
that was passed when they passed the tax or something that's amended by the court. You're welcome, sir. Anything else? Any other questions for our friends from Prairie County? Okay. Thank you all for coming. Thank you. Thank you. You're very welcome.
I'm glad to have you. We'll try not to be back. Okay. Well, no, you can come back. You can come back, Ms. Hale, but you have to bring
Speaker 285
1:53:51
me some bread pudding. without objection that will be filed okay
Speaker 284
1:53:59
ahead yes sir thank you mr chair on page 22 we
Speaker 10
1:54:03
have 10 private reports with findings i'm going to kind of skip around so east arkansas regional
Solid Waste Management District. We received good responses and staff recommends we file this
Speaker 10
1:54:18
Municipal Water and Sewer System. We received good responses and staff also recommends we file this
Speaker 11
1:54:26
report. I have a question on that one. Sure. On the It says deposits in excess of the insured amount
total approximately 494,000. Now, that means that they had deposits in a financial institution that exceeded the FDIC limit.
Would the response for that, or the proper response would be that they should have spread that amongst other institutions? Or get excess insurance at that
Speaker 15
1:54:57
particular bank, either one of them would be accepted. Which you could
do either one, as I understand. Okay, does everybody understand why I'm asking that? Because you get FDIC insurance, but it has a cap on the amount. And we just want to make sure if taxpayers' money is insured, whether they basically pay a premium for an excess or it's, again,
generally a lot of people just put it in multiple banks to do that. Okay, that's fine.
Speaker 7
1:55:24
Any other questions on Dover? If not, we'll file that report. Go right ahead, Ms. Gasway. Thank
Speaker 10
1:55:32
you. North Jackson County Rural Water Association on page 23. We have also received responses, and we recommend this one is filed.
Speaker 284
1:55:42
Without objection, it will be filed. The remaining seven reports, the agreed-upon procedures for Central City Water Department, December 31st, 24.
Fulton Water Department for December 31st, 24. Morrow Water and Sewer Department for December 24, 23, and 22, and 21, and the Western Grove Water Department for
Speaker 10
1:56:00
December 31, 23. We did not receive responses, and staff recommends we defer these. Without objection, they'll be deferred.
Speaker 10
1:56:13
reports with responses, and we can give you all a moment to look through these and see if you have any questions.
Speaker 131
1:56:23
Okay, I will recognize her represented more.
Y'all look like y'all are seriously perusing this, so I'll give you a little bit more time. No,
I'm letting y'all do that. Okay, well, if y'all are okay, can we go ahead and we can file this report without objection. Representative Moore, I want to recognize you. I believe you have something.
Representative Kendra Moore
Unverified
1:57:47
Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for the latitude of letting me explain this motion. I'm asking Representative McElroy to make.
I've had constituents for several years, three to be exact, complaining about the quality of water from the Cross County Rural Water Association. And in my research in trying to get to the bottom of the situation, they have been giving substantial amounts of state monies for infrastructure improvement. and trying to figure out where those monies went since they were given in 23 and 24 and even more recently since.
It was my understanding that cross county rural water is required by state statute to file audits with legislative audit on an annual basis. The last audit that cross county rural water filed was in the year of 22, 23,
Speaker 414
1:58:40
or 2002, 2003. And this is the- Whoa, 2002, 2003? So 24 and
23 years ago. That's correct. So make
Speaker 414
1:58:48
sure I heard that right. Go ahead. I'm sorry. And so
Representative Kendra Moore
Unverified
1:58:53
it is my request of the committee to, and I will allow Representative McElroy to make the motion to defer this report and not file it and give Cross County Rural Water the opportunity to come before the table next month's meeting.
Representative Mark D. McElroy
Unverified
1:59:10
Okay. Is that your motion, Representative McElroy? I couldn't have said it better myself. Okay. That's my, I move that. Okay. Any, is there a second? By Representative
Rye. Any discussion? What page? I got a question. Representative Gene,
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
1:59:26
you recognize. Have they not done private audits? That's a good question. 31. Guess what, do you have an
Speaker 419
1:59:37
answer for? No, page 31 for Representative Dalby. Oh, okay.
This one is shown as a report with
Representative Lane Jean
Unverified
1:59:51
no findings. Well, don't they do private audits and then send the audit over to the state? Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
Speaker 284
2:00:03
So are they current? They're current on this particular audit, but they are not current
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
2:00:08
on the audits that he is
Speaker 202
2:00:12
referring to. Okay, okay. What years were those?
Representative Kendra Moore
Unverified
2:00:17
I missed that. You're recognized, Representative. The staff of Legislative Audit was only able to find one previous filing from this entity, which was a 2002-2003 engagement.
There possibly could have been ones prior to that, but unless I had not talked to the powers that be, meaning Legislative Audit and the Director of the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission, they would not have even filed this audit of this year. So, we have 23 years of unfiled audits with legislative audit. That's pretty serious. I have a question for
staff. Okay, hold on, I think Representative Barry's in the queue ahead of you.
Representative Stan Berry
Unverified
2:01:00
I was just, thank you, Mr. Chair, I was just going to ask you. I probably heard it, how many
Representative Kendra Moore
Unverified
2:01:11
dollars are we talking about? You can respond, Representative Moore. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The state awarded them a loan in June of '23 for $876,000 and change, and then an ARPA grant in June of '24 for a little over-- or for a total of $1.534 million.
Speaker 69
2:01:34
Wow, so you're talking real money here. OK. Representative Dalby, I think you had
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
2:01:40
a follow-up question. I'm just inquiring of our audit staff. What do they know? Because there seems to be a gap in there. And if we've received audits or not received
audits, or have we requested them, what's been the procedure before we take this step? Ms.
Gassaway, whoever wants to answer. Ms. Gassaway, you recognize.
Speaker 430
2:02:06
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So just like our municipalities, these rural water associations are also required to file annual audit for legislative audit, us as well as other entities. You know, there's no enforcement provision underneath the law for legislative audit in regard to water associations. When those reports come in, we present them and bring them forward to this committee. This is the first report that has been filed with Arkansas Legislative Audit by the entity
Speaker 309
2:02:36
since 2002-2003, a report that I have from that period.
Excuse me, Kevin. April 30th, 2025 is
the only one that's been filed since 2002. Did I hear that correctly?
Speaker 309
2:02:52
It's a 2002-2003 report. But since in that interim, nothing. Correct. Okay.
That's pretty serious. Representative Dalby. Once again, question for Mr. White. So
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
2:03:05
is the statute, and I apologize, I didn't know this was coming up. I hadn't looked at the statute, but is it mandatory that they file it or is it file it if you want to?
I mean, I guess, what does the statute tell us that they're supposed to do? And then my second question to that, and I think I have some feedback, but if there's a mandatory requirement, is there not anything mandatory upon audit or upon this body over the last number of years that we didn't then send a letter to them or something like that?
Have we dropped the ball? Do you see my two-part question? What were they required to do and what were we required to do? Absolutely. So
Speaker 308
2:04:02
under the statute, they are required to have an annual audit report, an annual audit performed. The requirement
Speaker 430
2:04:08
is just like the city's, that that annual report has to be done within 12 months of fiscal year end. And then there's a requirement on the, you know, the accounting firm and the entity that that report be filed with legislative audit within, you know, I think it's 30 days of completion.
There's kind of multi-step there, right? But there is, just like in the cities, the requirement that it is filed with legislative audit. Legislative audit does not have a listing of all entities, all water associations, and we've never, I guess, tracked those or kept up with those filings, those entities, Other than we receive them, we process them when we send them through the committee. As far as underneath the code, underneath the law, there is a penalty provision. It's a few code sections later. And there's a penalty provision in that they could receive a $1,000 penalty and some, you know, permits could be lost.
And those penalty provisions fall with the Natural Resource Commission, Department of Health. And I'd have to pull the statute maybe to
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
2:05:12
see the third entity on that. Another question to staff. Then my next question is, is this a proper motion for this committee or should this go straight to exec? Because, you know, sometimes those things are brought directly to exec. And so what in the past is, what is that procedure?
Speaker 429
2:05:32
Mr. Wye. And, you know, I mean, I guess I couldn't speak to precedent as far as
Speaker 430
2:05:37
this. I don't think it occurs very often. and I'm not aware of it occurring previously, but as, you know, I don't have an entire history of all of the legislative audit. What I know is that this is a report that has been filed with the legislative audit, just the 2025 report. It's a report with no finding. And I don't know if there's any ask of legislative audit in this other than inviting management to this committee to discuss that report and why
maybe that's the first one that's been filed.
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
2:06:05
- Sure, one more, I'm sorry, I have a lot of questions. I just
Speaker 436
2:06:12
want the procedure to be— I'm going to give you a lot of leeway.
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
2:06:17
I just want to understand to make sure that we're in the right position. You continue. I want to hear it, too. And so—and we often ask people to come, and I'm not opposed to that, but we have them before us. Our questioning then would be limited to the 2025 or 24 audit, whichever audit we're talking about that they did file, and the head of finding.
then that is what we are limited to because that's what the motion is,
Speaker 69
2:06:46
correct? I don't know. What do you say? Kevin, I turn
it over to you. Here's the problem I had, Representative Dalby. We're talking about, what, 20-something years, and, you know,
I mean, okay, April 2025, they're okay, no findings, but what about those other 22 or 3 years
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
2:07:03
or whatever? And that's my question.
I'm not, I'm not sure, I'm not sure if we're in the right, I'm not, I'm not disagreeing that they need to be here. I'm just making sure that we're in the proper position for them to be here. No letter has been sent by audit saying you're delinquent, show up and explain it, or, you know, where's that basis? I just don't want us to haul somebody up here because then we can haul any, I mean, you know, just.
Well, I'm not opposed to hauling them. Let me interrupt you for a moment. You see what I'm trying to get to? Yes, ma'am. And I want to so that when we have somebody, whether it's this water group or
ABC town or whatever, that we're just. There? Yeah, that we're applying it evenly across the board. That's
Speaker 196
2:07:56
my question. And we want to do that, but the question
I have is, you know, usually we're dealing with, like, look back three years or something. Well, in this case, it's over 20. And what does the statute say on that exactly?
And I don't know how we should proceed. That's why I'm certainly willing to— Where's Ms. White? She
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
2:08:14
was in here earlier. Well, call Emily.
Get her in here. I'm with you. But when it says 23 years, Representative Dalby, I'm a little more interested than if it were three years. And I'm not
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
2:08:29
trying to prolong our meeting. No, you're not. We all know we went out of this meeting at some point. But we need to resolve this. But we want to make sure that we're on the right path.
Is there a statute of limitations? If so, how far back can we go? And I think Ms. White needs to be here to answer these questions because I want this committee to be on solid footing if we're the
Speaker 168
2:08:53
ones to do it. And again, here's me practicing law without a license,
but if there's anything fraudulent there, there is no statute of limitations because it's fraud. So we can, Mr. White, do you have a recommendation of
how we move forward on this? I mean, I think everyone wants to get the same information, and I am not wedded to the idea that we have to have this, you know, today on February 12th.
But, you know, maybe you could tell me the best way, or the committee,
Speaker 429
2:09:21
the best way we could proceed. So, I mean, again, it's a report that's been filed with this committee.
Speaker 430
2:09:27
It's just, you know, I mean, it's the first report we've had filed with us in many years. They're not asking legislative audit to do any work, and that's typically the purview of executive committee is when there's an ask of legislative audit staff to do some, for us to perform some procedures, to perform some work, or do some action more than invite them.
I would say it's the prerogative of this committee. Absolutely, that's the situation is if this committee believes they want to invite in this entity to ask the questions that this committee so desires in regard to that audit report. I'm not sure if I'm helping you out too much or not.
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
2:10:08
You are, I'm just trying to make
Speaker 47
2:10:11
sure we're doing it right. Representative Berry. Well, I'm certainly not an authority on our
Representative Stan Berry
Unverified
2:10:17
audit, but In the past, I have this same situation that's been asked,
and it goes, or what I'm familiar with, it has gone through the executive committee prior to coming to this committee. I don't know if that's proper procedure or not. And something else, we're talking about water funds. Are we talking about USDA money, or are we talking about the state of Arkansas? I guess it could be all of the above, could it not, Mr. White? Would it make a difference if it was USDA money whether we had the authority to audit or not, or?
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
2:11:06
Representative Gene. If it's federal dollars, it requires an audit. Mm-hm. Do we have the same- I can't believe that they're not required to have an audit anyway, but- No, but if they're getting federal dollars, the feds require them to have
Representative Lane Jean
Unverified
2:11:22
one. Now, if this is state, do we have, does the state demand if the governor give some money, or do we have a law that requires them to have an audit if we give them state funds?
So, getting a little outside my wheelhouse here. Well, I'm
Speaker 429
2:11:42
way out of mind, so we're in there together. Appreciate that. You know, my understanding is that some
Speaker 430
2:11:49
funds are provided from the Natural Resource Commission, ANRC, and they have different type of loan programs over there, like the Safe Drinking Water Loan Program and others. And I believe most of the time prior to them making loans, they require an audit report.
They would have an audit report. That's not necessarily that an audit report has been filed. with legislative audit or the copy of that same report has been filed with legislative audit. In
the interest of efficiency, Ms. White, I'm going
to ask if you could, she's here to save us, folks. Ms. White, would you come to the table? What I was about to say was, could you get with her before tomorrow morning at 9 and come up with a recommendation for the
full committee so we can move forward with this
without having to push it back until March?
Speaker 196
2:12:46
But could, would, Kevin, would you please tell Emily what we're doing? Please. And any members of the committee, just jump in if it's not quite clear.
Speaker 308
2:12:58
That's it. So, Emily, the situation we have before, so we have Cross County Rural
Speaker 430
2:13:03
Water Association that has filed with us an April 30th, 2025 audit report. A motion has been made to defer that report. It's a report with no findings, defer it until March and invite management to attend to discuss the audit report.
We have some questions regarding scope of what they can discuss when they get here, whether this is a proper venue or this should go through
exec. And also, if I could, Ms. White, we seem to have about 21, 22 years of not having reports. So it's not just about this 2025 thing is not the problem, but it's like my first reaction is, well, where the hell have you been kind of thing. So I think we need to get to the bottom of this, and if there's any way we could expedite it by staff making a recommendation tomorrow,
a full committee that we could request them to come in or whatever we need to do to put this on the path of getting it
straightened out. Did I say that okay, you think, Kevin? Again, that was what came up is that this 2025 audit report, it's like, well, what happened to the 22 or 23 ones that they should have been in there before that? That's where we are right now. Sure.
Speaker 448
2:14:21
And Representative Dalby, I heard your question. And so I may have missed a bit
Speaker 449
2:14:26
walking down here, so my apologies if I did.
But as I understand your constitutional authority as a governing body, you have the ability to call them in based on my reading of 14234-119 because they have a reporting requirement to you all. So you all could defer and ask them to come sit at the end of the table just based on the fact that you've received a 2025 report that was processed through legislative audit and brought before this body because that's what the statute requires. As Mr. White said, there's no rule enforcement mechanism as far as if they don't provide them to us.
I think that might be why there was such a gap for 22 or
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
2:15:09
23 years, if I understood correctly. Okay, and Emily, I appreciate that. My question is, should the motion be amended to include the scope of what the issue is, or are we, because we're calling them in over a 2025 audit. Sure. And in my mind, then we're limited to asking them questions about an audit that has no findings. And should that motion be to ask, you know, to broaden what the scope is,
because I could envision that someone would sit down there and say, well, we're not prepared to answer those questions because we thought we're only here on the 2025 audit. I'm just trying to get it into the right perspective so that we have, we're asking the right questions and not wasting our time with somebody and say, I didn't know that's
Speaker 449
2:16:02
what we're talking about. I do, Representative Dalby. I think you all have discretion there. I think it could go one of either ways based on the way that I read your legislative oversight authority founded in the Constitution and some case law since then.
I think you could decide to ask them. I want to know why you haven't submitted a report. I think you have the ability to do that if you so choose. So to answer your question simply, it's whatever you want to do as the governing body. You could limit the scope if you wanted, or you could extend it and ask some very difficult questions as to where have the reports been for the last 23 years. Mr. Chair, may I
Speaker 123
2:16:41
ask Representative McElroy a question? Of course. He wants
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
2:16:43
to respond. If he wants to respond, Representative McElroy, would you be willing to amend your motion
that it would extend to questions in regard to previous years so that we're not limited just to the 2025 audit. I'm just asking, would you consider that? Is that your amendment
to your own motion? Yes, I would
Representative Mark D. McElroy
Unverified
2:17:04
like to amend it, that we could question the Water Department why they did not file for over 20 years. Okay. And you
second that, I presume, Representative Dalby. No, it's Representative Wright.
It's Representative Wright, you second. Okay, any other questions or discussion before we vote? Representative Gene. I
Representative Lane Jean
Unverified
2:17:27
want to, and this is for Representative Moore. How much money did you say they had received from
Representative Kendra Moore
Unverified
2:17:41
the state of Arkansas? June of '23 they received a loan of almost $877,000 and
then a grant in June of '24 for $657,712 for over $1.5 million. And then they have since received more funds since then, but I don't have those figures on it. From the state of Arkansas? Yes, sir.
those was ARPA, as I recall you saying, Representative Moore. That's correct. Okay, all right. everybody clear
Representative Stan Berry
Unverified
2:18:18
on the motion any discussion representative Barry well it and I know that there are a lot of questions about where that money and we
need to get to the bottom of it but I guess it seems like it should be be requested in written request to the executive committee for them to look at it before it
Speaker 47
2:18:41
comes for our decision. Ms. White, can you respond to
Representative Berry's suggestion? Because I'm kind of in a two-way quandary about that myself, Stan. So what our rules require, Representative
Speaker 449
2:18:54
Berry, is that if an audit has not been previously
done by legislative audit, then yes, a request to audit would have to go through our executive committee. As I understand the conversation of the governing body, you all today, you're simply just asking questions about a report that's already come through your committee. Even though the report was done by a private auditor, it's still come through your committee. So based on the fact that it's been funneled through your committee, I believe your legislative oversight power would allow you to defer it and bring them to the end of the table. Now, if you wish for us to conduct an audit, that's a completely separate conversation that would most certainly have to go through the executive committee.
Speaker 105
2:19:33
Based on your own rules. Okay, and I understand what you're saying, Representative Berry. I'm kind of
of the mind that is there a way we can expedite this so we're not back here next month dealing with the
Representative Stan Berry
Unverified
2:19:48
same thing again. I'm sorry. Talk over to you, Mr. Chairman. You go right ahead, sir. I guess the fact is that it has already been audited. Just for that one year? Just one year. Yes,
sir. But it was audited by the state?
No, sir, it was Myron Ward CPAs. Water system. Oh, okay, a private audit. Okay, any other comments or questions? We do have a motion pending. Do we need to restate the motion, does everyone understand it? Okay, everybody seems to be ready to go, we'll vote on it. All in favor of motion, say aye.
Aye. Opposed? Okay, it passes. Thank you.
Speaker 10
2:20:35
Ms. Gasoloy. Thank you. So on page 31 and 32, we have 57 remaining reports with no findings, and staff recommends
we file these. Without objection, we'll file them. Any other questions or items to come before the committee?
and remind everyone, room 149 next month. Probably you'll show up here and it'll all be taped up and everything, so you'll understand quick, but that's where you need to go look is 149.
If there's nothing else coming before, we're adjourned.
Agenda
A. Call to Order by Chair
B. Adoption of Minutes of the January 8, 2026, meeting
C. Update on Private Reports – Delinquent December 31, 2022, Water and Sewer Reports
D. Update on Private Reports – Delinquent December 31, 2023, Water and Sewer Reports
E. Discussion of Noncompliance with Municipal Accounting Law – Adona
F. Discussion of Noncompliance with Municipal Accounting Law – Gum Springs
G. Discussion of Noncompliance with Municipal Accounting Law – Fargo
H. Discussion of Noncompliance with Municipal Accounting Law – Denning
I. Review of Reports (Refer to the Synopsis)
J. The next meeting of the Legislative Joint Auditing Committee will be held on March 12, 2026.
K. 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, Feb 12, 2026 | Agenda | 1 | Official source ↗ |
Speakers
Speaker 1
Speaker 4
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
Senator Mark Johnson Chair
Unverified
Speaker 7
Speaker 10
Speaker 16
Speaker 23
Speaker 11
Speaker 30
Speaker 13
Speaker 28
Speaker 38
Speaker 41
Speaker 47
Speaker 57
Speaker 60
Speaker 61
Speaker 69
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
Speaker 78
Speaker 86
Speaker 100
Speaker 105
Speaker 44
Speaker 52
Speaker 116
Speaker 121
Speaker 123
Speaker 126
Speaker 129
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
Morgan Gonzalez
Unverified
Speaker 141
Speaker 146
Speaker 154
Speaker 81
Speaker 157
Speaker 163
Speaker 168
Speaker 174
Speaker 176
Speaker 180
Chair
Unverified
Speaker 186
Speaker 185
Representative Lane Jean
Unverified
Speaker 193
Speaker 170
Speaker 196
Speaker 202
Speaker 204
Speaker 221
Representative Nicole Clowney
Unverified
Speaker 238
Speaker 244
Speaker 247
Speaker 166
Robin Moppet-Bowen
Unverified
Speaker 268
Speaker 271
Speaker 266
Speaker 34
Speaker 277
Speaker 259
Speaker 258
Speaker 284
Speaker 285
Speaker 291
Speaker 293
Speaker 262
Speaker 201
Speaker 297
Speaker 302
Speaker 303
Speaker 308
Speaker 309
Speaker 310
Speaker 312
Speaker 314
Speaker 315
Speaker 234
Speaker 317
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
Speaker 337
Speaker 323
Speaker 340
Speaker 328
Speaker 342
Representative Stan Berry
Unverified
Speaker 348
Speaker 39
Speaker 354
Speaker 356
Speaker 358
Speaker 360
Speaker 362
Representative Mark D. McElroy
Unverified
Speaker 103
Speaker 372
Representative Wayne Long
Unverified
Speaker 371
Speaker 376
Speaker 380
Speaker 382
Speaker 387
Speaker 388
Speaker 393
Speaker 402
Speaker 165
Speaker 56
Speaker 15
Speaker 131
Speaker 143
Representative Kendra Moore
Unverified
Speaker 414
Speaker 419
Speaker 430
Speaker 429
Speaker 436
Speaker 448
Speaker 449