21 hours Ago By Mike Jones
The Washington County commissioners are expected to vote today to transfer a bank account created for last month’s Real Estate Expo to under the supervision of the county treasurer’s office after the controller raised concerns about oversight of its funds. The decision was made after acting controller Heather Sheatler sounded the alarm on the account last week since it had three unauthorized signers, who are employees in the commissioners office and were able to deposit or withdraw funds. The account was opened in February and contained about $7,500 at the start of last month, although there likely is more money in there now since it was designed to be used to hold any revenue made from sponsorships or vendor fees from the March 12 expo that will be used for next year’s event.
During Tuesday morning’s agenda-setting meeting, Commissioner Larry Maggi questioned why the account was being handed over to Treasurer Tom Flickinger’s office rather than to Sheatler for oversight. “Shouldn’t it go to the controller?” Maggi asked. “It doesn’t have to,” solicitor Gary Sweat said.
“I believe it’s a custodial account ...
and one (the controller) can review. I think it’s consistent with what the controller is asking.” Sweat said Sheatler would have access to the account to review all records and audit it if she deemed it necessary.
Reached for comment Wednesday morning, Sheatler appeared to sound like it was a workable solution, although she still expects that any payments or checks written from the account would still need to go through her office for final approval. “As long as there is a county signer on that account – which the treasurer is – they can oversee it,” she said. “I don’t have a problem with it going there as long as there is full transparency.
” The Observer-Reporter filed an open records request last week for all expenses related to the expo, which the county responded to Tuesday afternoon asking for a 30-day delay while it reviewed the request. The county has until the end of the day today to respond to a similar request from the newspaper asking for all sponsorship and vendor information regarding revenue for the expo. Also during the agenda-setting meeting, Sweat praised purchasing director Randy Vankirk and his staff for successfully retrieving nearly $5 million in emergency radio equipment that had been purchased, but was unused while being stored in a New Jersey warehouse.
“These guys are hound dogs,” Sweat said of Vankirk and his staff about their work. “It shouldn’t have been this hard, but I really appreciate your work on this,” Commission Chairman Nick Sherman said. The county is expecting to sell the unused radio equipment to recoup costs after canceling the original contract on the project and going with a different vendor.
At the start of Tuesday’s meeting, Maggi announced that longtime county administrator Scott Fergus, who also briefly served as a county commissioner, died Monday at 79 after battling health problems. The commissioners held a moment of silence before the meeting for Fergus, who served as director of administration for 15 years before retiring in 2020. The commissioners are scheduled to meet at 10 a.
m. today in the ground floor meeting room at the Crossroads Center building in Washington..
