The State Comptroller of the Treasury’s Division of County Audit has released the annual Financial Report of DeKalb County for the year ended June 30, 2011
The audit resulted in fifteen findings and recommendations which have been reviewed with DeKalb County Management.
(CLICK THE FOLLOWING LINK TO VIEW THE ENTIRE STATE AUDIT OF DEKALB COUNTY GOVERNMENT)http://www.comptroller1.state.tn.us/repository/CA/2011/dekalb.pdf
Six of the findings were in Road Supervisor Kenny Edge’s department.
The findings were as follows:
The office did not maintain adequate controls over consumable assets
The office had deficiencies in payroll procedures
Competitive bids were not solicited for crushed stone
A property owner erected a gate on a county road
A complete county road list was not submitted to the County Commission for approval
The Highway Department performed work and provided materials on roads to private cemeteries without authorization.
When contacted by WJLE Thursday afternoon, Edge said there is no truth to the finding that competitive bids were not solicited for crushed stone. While Edge apparently could not provide sufficient proof to satisfy the state, he said the notices were clearly published in the local newspaper during the summer. “There were bids. You can go back and get the Smithville Review in June of this year and see where I bid on them and we got bids,” said Edge.
Edge doesn’t deny that a property owner erected a gate on a county road, as found in the audit. In fact, he said there are gates on county roads in several places across the county. “The one they’re talking about here is a gate across the Love Valley Road. There’s a graveyard there but they let anybody go to the graveyard who wants to. There are gates all over this county on county roads. There are two or three in Wilder Hollow. There’s one at the head of Dry Creek. They are all over the county on the end of these roads, on Hurricane Ridge and everywhere. I’ve always worked with the landowners,” said Edge.
Edge also denies that he has failed to provide the county commission a complete road list for approval, as found in the audit. Edge insists that he submits road lists to the commission each year.
As for performing work and providing materials on roads to private cemeteries, Edge said he has done that throughout his years as road supervisor and that the county commission is well aware of it even though a resolution either has never been adopted by the commission or is currently unavailable acknowledging the practice. “They’re saying the county needs to pass a resolution and the county may have but they said I couldn’t produce it for them,”
Edge said its frustrating how that the state has such a problem with him putting gravel or a tile in a driveway, but sees nothing wrong with the state putting down hot mix and installing guardrails to a dead end on private property in the midst of a cedar thicket on the side of a hill along side a state highway (referring to property at the foot of Snow Hill on Highway 70)
Concerning the finding about deficiencies in the payroll procedures, Edge said ” You’re supposed to have one (employee) to receipt the money and another employee to write the checks to the employees. But we don’t have the money to hire two people for that. Its always been done this way ever since we’ve had a road department,” he said.
As far as the finding concerning maintaining adequate controls over consumable assets, Edge said “they write me up every year on the road tiles. I furnish everybody in the county a road tile that wants a driveway to build a new house. We don’t write down every tile for every particular location. We overlook them along. But if you miss one they (state) write you up just like you missed them all. They want you to put down every tile that you buy and then write down every location that you put it in. You know, you could have another employee over there doing nothing but trying to keep up with every nail, what bridge it was drove in, what gully every tile was put in, and what gully you put every gravel in. You can’t keep up with everything the auditors want you to and then they write you up for it,” said Edge.
WJLE will have a follow up story on other state audit findings soon.
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