Legislative Audit: Counties and Municipalities, Feb. 17, 2026

Senator Mark Johnson Thank you. Okay, the chair will entertain a motion to adopt the minutes of the January 8th meeting. Senator Crowell. Is there a second? Representative Beck. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Opposed? Okay, minutes are adopted. Update on private reports, item C. You want to go ahead and cover that? 

Turnback Reinstatement

Staff 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 turnback released and reinstated, which leaves 24 that are continuing to have funds held in escrow. Mr. Chair, this concludes my report. 

Senator Mark Johnson 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 with 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 copies. Yeah, okay. Yeah, if you’ll just read the list so everyone will kind of know. And then if any members have any questions about it, I’ll be glad to entertain those. 

Staff Okay, I can read the list. Yes, sir. This is the 19 that are still having their funds escrowed: Clarendon, Evening Shade, Hardy, Hartford, Plummerville, Valley Springs, Willmar, Casa, Dumas, Norman, Buckner, Eudora, Lake Village, Norfork, Wabasika, Wilmott, Biggers, Carthage, Fouke, Grady, Lead Hill, Letona, Menifee, and Ulm. 

Senator Mark Johnson Okay any questions about any of that? Okay, I assume we’ll ask the members’ consent to file their report? We don’t need to? Okay. Do we need to do the same thing on item D, which is the same thing for 23? Go right ahead. 

Staff 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. These are not currently having their turnback escrowed at this time. Mr Chair, that concludes my report. Do you want me to read you these five? 

Senator Mark Johnson Would the committee like to hear who the five are? Go ahead and read it . 

Staff Black Rock, Bull Shoals, Garland, Marvel, and Omaha. 

Senator Mark Johnson Okay. Any questions? Okay. Well, we can move on. I guess we go to item E, non-compliance  with county law. Adona. 

Staff Thank you. 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. Therefore, staff recommends discontinuing the process of withholding turnback as outlined in code 14-59-117. That concludes my report. 

Senator Mark Johnson Okay. Any questions? Okay. Without objection, we’ll file the report. I think we need 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. Next, item F, Gum Springs. 

Staff Okay, Gum Springs. This one– wait, Gum Springs. 

Senator Mark Johnson That’s the next one on the list. 

Staff What about–? 

Senator Mark Johnson I have a different one. 

Staff You have a different list?

Senator Mark Johnson Yours is different from mine. 

City of Gum Springs

Staff Okay, so this one, we are going to ask this committee to recommend 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 read the report. 

Senator Mark Johnson Proceed. 

Staff On page 19 of the synopsis, the town of Gum Springs, this one has repeat findings and it is as of year ending December 31, 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 14-59-101 through 119. The town was in noncompliance with these codes as noted below. Bank accounts were not reconciled monthly. Cash receipts and disbursement journals were not established for all funds. Pre-numbered 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 6 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 taxes. And the payroll clerk and mayor’s 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 Act 833 expenditures paid from the Fire Department account, $6,304 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 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. 

Senator Mark Johnson Okay, would y’all please come to the end of the table? And if you would both sit down and hit your mic and identify yourself for the record. 

Toni Beard I’m Toni Beard, the recorder treasurer of Gum Springs. 

Senator Mark Johnson Yes, ma’am. Mayor?

Meldene Ivory Meldene Ivory, Mayor of Gum Springs. 

Senator Mark Johnson Okay, thank you both. I will allow y’all to respond to what our staff has just said about your audit and the repeat findings. 

Toni Beard Yes, sir. I’m sorry that it wasn’t done, but I have since established the journals, reconciled the bank 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. 

Senator Mark Johnson I’ll take your word for it. But I would like to know, this was done for all the years that were in question, correct? Or just the most recent ones. 

Toni Beard It’s the most recent because there was not really any records or anything to look at. 

Senator Mark Johnson How long have you been recorder treasurer? 

Toni Beard I started in 24. 

Senator Mark Johnson Okay, so it goes back to before you were in this office. Okay, Mayor, do you have anything to add to what she said? You might pull your mic down. Pull your mic, mayor.

Meldene Ivory I’m sorry. Yeah, they had something over about 2015 and we’re having a problem finding those records. And I was mayor, I started in 2019. But just because I started in 19, we will still work to find those discrepancies there were in 2015. So we’re going to work toward that end to try to get that established and get that fixed also. 

Senator Mark Johnson Okay, any questions by members of the committee for the Mayor and for the recorder treasurer? Representative Dalby.

Representative Carol Dalby 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 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 is being misappropriated or squandered. Can you address that please? 

Meldene Ivory I’ll try. The biggest thing that we was having problems with, we wasn’t putting some of the stuff in the minutes. But now we are now 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, okay? So we’re trying to do a whole lot better. She come on in 2024 and we had a lot of problems when we got there. Like I said, I’m not going to make excuses. We’re just going to try to do better. 

Representative Carol Dalby Follow-up, Mr. Chair. It’s not really a question, but a suggestion. Have you worked with these people? They’re sitting over here to your left from the Municipal League. They’re here to help you and they can help y’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? 

Meldene Ivory No ma’am, not at this time. I will though. 

Representative Carol Dalby I guarantee you they’re here to help you. All right. 

Meldene Ivory Appreciate it.

Senator Mark Johnson  Thank you for that advice, Representative Dalby. Any other committee members of questions? 

Staff Yes, sir. So we need to determine the will of the committee if we want to start the 60 day clock on the town. 

Senator Mark Johnson This is to withhold their turn back? 

Staff Yes, sir. 

Senator Mark Johnson 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 Do you need a motion to start the clock or is that just the recommendation? 

Senator Mark Johnson We do need a motion. 

Representative Carol Dalby So moved. 

Senator Mark Johnson So moved by Representative Dalby, second by Representative McElroy. Any discussion on the motion? If not, all in favor say aye. Opposed? I presume that means it starts today. 

Staff Yes sir. 

Senator Mark Johnson We could just clicked the stopwatch. And it’s how many days? 

Staff 60 days. 

Senator Mark Johnson 60 days. And you understand, mayor? 

Meldene Ivory Yes, sir. 

Senator Mark Johnson Okay. All right. 

Staff 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. 

Senator Mark Johnson What is the will of the committee? Motion by Representative Dalby. Second by Representative Beck. Any discussion on that? If not, all in favor say aye. Opposed no. Okay. Thank you, folks. Thank you for coming here. Representative Dalby gave you excellent advice. Talk to the people at the Municipal League. That’s what they’re there for. And they can help. What’s next? 

Town of Fargo

Staff The town of Fargo. 

Senator Mark Johnson Next, we have non-compliance from Fargo. Is anyone from Fargo here? 

Staff No, sir. No, sir. 

Senator Mark Johnson What do we need to do? 

Staff If I may, yes, sir. We were planning to discuss the substantial non-compliance 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. 

Senator Mark Johnson Is this the first time he was invited on this particular? 

Staff He called in sick. 

Senator Mark Johnson Okay, well, we can relate to 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 there any objection to deferring this to next month? If not, we’ll defer it to the next one without objection. Okay and now we go to Denning. 

Town of Denning 

Staff Okay so the town of Denning. Thank you, Mr. Chair. It’s also for consideration of substantial non-compliance with municipal accounting law. And with your permission, we’d like to go ahead and read the findings for the town of Denning. 

Senator Mark Johnson Please proceed. 

Staff It’s going to be on page 11. And the town of Denning is also being referred to the prosecuting attorney and attorney general. This report is for December 31, 2024, 23 and 22. 

And under the mayor, the town made payments totaling 4,300; 2,170; and 3,858 in 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 service, 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 the supporting documentation was not maintained for the following disbursement in non-compliance with code. Approximately 3,200, 2,300, and 2,000 were disbursed 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 disbursed 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 14-59-101 through 119. The town was in non-compliance with these code sections and proper accounting procedures as noted below. Prenumbered 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. Pre-numbered 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 with the total disbursements per bank. Also a repeat finding. 

The following issues were noted during the review of payroll records. IRS quarterly 941 reports, W2 forms, W3 forms, and DFA ARW3 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. We have the Mayor and the Recorder Treasurer here today. 

Senator Mark Johnson If you will both come up to the end of the table and make yourself comfortable and introduce yourself. Turn your mic on. 

Paul Lee I’m Paul Lee, Mayor of Denning. 

Candace Harmon Candice Harmon, recorder treasurer. 

Senator Mark Johnson Mayor, would you like to respond to the items that Ms. Gasaway mentioned in the report? 

Paul Lee 22, 23 we lost our recorder treasure 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 and tried to dig out as much as we could of it. 

And then we hired another lady that was taking care of our recorder area. And she got Alzheimer’s and she run me down a rabbit hole. Was 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 back with the stuff that she had was with urine all over it. So anyways, 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 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 check. And so I paid for it out of my pocket. And anyways you got any questions, I’ll try my best to answer them. So it’s been a rough ride. 

Senator Mark Johnson Well I’m sorry to hear, especially about the loss of your colleagues, Mayor. Any questions of the committee members? Representative Dalby. 

Representative Carol Dalby Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’d welcome any members of this committee to ask questions besides me. 

Senator Mark Johnson That’s why we have smart lawyers that are in the legislature, and you’re probably the smartest. 

Representative Carol Dalby 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? 

Candace Harmon Yes, ma’am. Candice Harmon. 

Representative Carol Dalby I’m, sorry, Ms. Harmon, I just missed your name. When did you come on board?

Candace Harmon  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 end of 2023, mid to the end.

Representative Carol Dalby 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 training to learn what to do and how to do this and to get it back in shape? 

Candace Harmon 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 asked the council their advice. 

Do I need to stay on another 60 days to ensure 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 2020 to 2021– 19, 21 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 and ordinances are being done correctly. And future findings will be addressing them to the council. 

As far as this audit, I believe we have to wait till 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 a training issue. 

When I came on, it was a mess. Had no idea how to do it. I just know that we have 300 something citizens. It has to be someone from town. We needed help, and I offered to help. 

Paul Lee I’d like to address that. Once Candice 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 Candice and I got together and got with the city aldermen and we purchased that package. 

Senator Mark Johnson And that’s a software package? 

Paul Lee 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 want to say that she took that and spent quite a few days studying with the Secretary of Knoxville to learn that package. So 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. 

Representative Carol Dalby And you think that that’s going to be helpful? 

Paul Lee 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 as well. 

Representative Carol Dalby 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. 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. 

Senator Mark Johnson Yes ma’am. Representative Beck, were you asking to be recognized? Okay, okay. Let me follow up on Representative Dalby’s comment. We encourage y’all 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, 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 with 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 you 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 Demming? Now, are we in the same situation on the 60 day clock? 

Staff Yes, sir. 

Senator Mark Johnson What’s the will of the committee? Do we click the stopwatch? There’s a second. Representative Dalby. Second by Representative Jean. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Opposed? Okay, so you, mayor, you got 60 days. And after that, you’ll start losing turnback. 

So, again, we don’t dictate your solution, but I encourage you to get with the Municipal League or whoever else you need to and maybe even the vendor of your new software can help you get through this. Yes sir, thank you both for coming. 

Candace Harmon Thank you. 

Senator Mark Johnson Okay. Okay. And without objection, we’ll file this report. The next is– did we do Fargo? 

Staff Fargo is not here. 

Senator Mark Johnson Fargo’s not here. That’s right. Okay. All right. So we need to move to the reports. All right, go right ahead. 

City of Green Forest

Staff Thank you, Mr. Chair. Starting on page one, City of Green Forest for the year ending December 31, 2024. 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 city clerk here. 

Senator Mark Johnson I’m sorry, would y’all please introduce yourself for the record? 

Morgan Gonzales My name is Morgan Gonzalez and I am the city clerk/recorder. 

Senator Mark Johnson Okay. 

Jerry Carlton I am appointed mayor 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. 

Senator Mark Johnson Condolences to your city and your family, the former mayor. And we understand. But let’s go back to the facts that we’re going to help you get straightened out on. 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? All in favor, say aye. Opposed? Okay. Thank y’all for coming up here. Thank you. 

And I hope y’ 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 often it’s thankless. And so I don’t want you to think we’re this major tribunal that’s looking down at you. We just want you to be in compliance with the law. 

Jerry Carlton Yes, sir, it was more bad timing. 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 for it. 

Senator Mark Johnson Well, the Lord gives us so many days in this world, so we’ll work around it. Thank you for coming. Keep going, Ms. Gasaway. 

Staff Thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay and I failed to mention that these 10, including Green Forest, these next 10 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 31, 2023. Quinn Water Association in March 31st of 25. Strong Water and Sewer Fund. December 31, 23. And  Wheland Springs Water System, December 31st, 23. We have received responses from each of these and staff recommends we file these reports. 

Senator Mark Johnson Without objection, we’ll file the reports. 

Staff And then we have five more: Fulton Water Department, December 31st, 2023; McRae Municipal Water and Sewer System, December 30th, 2024; Montrose Water and Sewer Department, December 31, 2024; and Wilmar Water and Sewer Department for December 31th, 2023 and 2022. We have not received responses and staff recommends we defer these reports. 

Senator Mark Johnson Okay. Any discussion or questions of staff on this? If not, we’ll defer these. And should we right now, Ms. Gasaway, 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 y’all? Because there will 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. 

City of Elaine

Staff Thank you, 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, 2024 and 2023. 

Under the mayor, the city discovered and we verified that the fire chief purchased questionable items totaling $1,825 and $1,504 during 2024 and 2023 respectively. The Fire Chief acknowledges to city officials that items totaling $418 were personal purchases. 

Without supporting documentation, it is unclear if there is a business purpose of the remaining items. The Fire Chief resigned on January 28th of 2025 and the city has not recouped any of these funds in question. If there are no questions, staff recommends we file. 

Senator Mark Johnson Any questions? No one’s here from–

Staff Yes, ma’am. 

Senator Mark Johnson It’s already been turned over to the prosecutor.

Staff It will be, yes. 

Senator Mark Johnson This one’s this is kind of a no-brainer, Representative Dalby. Any other questions or comments on it? If not, we’ll file that and move on? 

City of Strong

Staff Okay, on to page five. 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, 2023 and 2022. 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 2022 through October 31st of 2025. 

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 Gardiner Alumni Association. This is a repeat finding. The city was in non-compliance with accounting procedures for municipalities set forth in state laws, Arkansas Codes 14-59-101 through 119, and other proper accounting procedures as follows. 

Bank reconciliations contained errors and were not approved by someone other than the preparer. Prenumbered 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 controlled totals contained errors. This is also a repeat finding. Moving on to page seven, 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 IRS in 2022. This is a repeat finding. Various restricted funds were deposited into the wrong bank accounts. Although schedules 1 and 3 show cash balances of approximately $158,000 and $65,000 for the general fund for 2023 and 2022 respectively, the general fund owed the solid waste fund over $168,00 and $157,000 as of December 31st of the same year. 

Senator Mark Johnson Each of those is for a different year? 

Staff Yes, sir. 

Senator Mark Johnson Okay. That’s 23 and 22, correct? 

Staff Yes sir. 

Senator Mark Johnson Okay. Please proceed. 

Staff Okay, sure. As shown on note five, on schedule five, when these outstanding amounts were considered, the general fund had a deficit fund balance of over $10,000 and $92,000 as of December 2023 and 2022 respectively. 

Additionally $3,600 was due to the street fund from the solid waste fund as of December 31, 2023. Subsequent to the report date, that amount was repaid. This is a repeat finding. Street fund expenditures exceeded appropriations in 2022 by 50,000 or 71% in non-compliance 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 funding. And we have the mayor here today. 

Senator Mark Johnson Okay, mayor, would you like to come up and visit with us, please? Sit down and turn your mic on and identify yourself for the record. 

Daryell Howell Daryell Howell, Mayor of the City of Strong. 

Senator Mark Johnson Okay, thank you, Mayor Howell. Would you like to respond to the things that Ms. Gasaway just outlined? 

Daryell Howell Yes sir. On the initial, number one, with the garbage bag receipts, we have implemented the internal controls on that. We 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’re implemented some internal controls to make sure that we are monitoring and making sure those deposits are being made. 

Senator Mark Johnson Go right ahead, you’re recognized, Representative Dalby. I think you might be asking the same one. You go ahead first. 

Representative Carol Dalby Well, simply because we have so much. I hate to interrupt. 

Senator Mark Johnson No, that’s fine. You go right ahead. 

Representative Carol Dalby Number one, Mr. Mayor, where’s the $11,878? 

Daryell Howell And that, after we actually met with our auditor and then they– those– basically what was said by those, the city clerk and the water clerk, apparently those funds were supposedly deposited. We tried to track it with the auditors and they were not able to come up with those. 

Representative Carol Dalby Did it go into somebody’s pocket? 

Daryell Howell Of course,on that, I’m not certain. Of course, the water clerk, city clerk receive those payments and makes all those deposits. 

Representative Carol Dalby I understand. But my question 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? 

Daryell Howell Correct. Because they were supposed to have been deposited into the general fund. 

Senator Mark Johnson 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 presuming something that’s not true? 

Daryell Howell These are actually bags, comes in a box of 50 where we actually purchase those from the county. And then individuals come in and purchase a box of those bags. And they’re sold at $9 a box. 

Senator Mark Johnson Has anybody ever heard of something like this? Former mayor, Representative Jean, you’re recognized. 

Representative Lane Jean Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mayor, how long have you been mayor? 

Daryell Howell This is year 24. 

Representative Lane Jean Year 24. The clerks at the water office that are taking this money, are they still there? 

Daryell Howell Yes, and I actually brought that to 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. 

Representative Lane Jean And so they’ve been there the four or five years that y’all have 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. And when people are taking money, it had to be taken somewhere. I mean, it’s not in an account. 

Somebody pocketed this money is 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 Crossett when Crossett 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. 

Senator Mark Johnson Thank you, Representative Jean. Representative Beck, you’re recognized. 

Representative Rick Beck 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 it will implement a plan to transfer the past fees collected by the water fund to the solid waste fund. 

So it seems like I may be not understanding it. But it seems there’s a private business that received free rental and the city is making up for it by transferring between what appears to be two city accounts. What are the private businesses?

Daryell Howell  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 down the line, 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. 

Representative Rick Beck Okay. All right. So now I understand. Thank you. 

Senator Mark Johnson Okay. Other questions? Mayor, I’m still back on this sale of garbage bags. If it were $500, $600, I might say, Okay. When you’re talking about over $11,000, almost $12,000 for sale of garbage bags, I mean, I’m sorry, that just doesn’t pass the smell test with me. Can you elaborate a little bit more about that? That’s a lot of garbage bags for a small town. 

Daryell Howell 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, periodically I checked the actual deposit books, and of course those deposit books, they were putting the receipts in the books. But the actual deposits were not being made. And so, there’s an oversight. 

Senator Mark Johnson So they were accounting for the deposits. They just weren’t making the deposit. Is that what you’re telling me? 

Daryell Howell Correct. 

Senator Mark Johnson That’s a major red flag, I would think. Any other committee members have a question? Oh, come on, Representative Dalby, you can help me on this. 

Representative Carol Dalby We’re calculating over here. 

Senator Mark Johnson I do that sometimes, too. 

Representative Carol Dalby It’s what– we’re calculating. 

Senator Mark Johnson 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 can see what we are 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 I’m concerned for you and your town over that. 

Daryell Howell And certainly, 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 the clerk was not apparently depositing it. 

Senator Mark Johnson Representative Rye. 

Representative Johnny Rye Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Sir, let me ask you this. Just a question that’s not quite in line with what we were just speaking about. How much do those bags cost? 

Daryell Howell There are $9 per box in there. 

Representative Johnny Rye And how many comes in a box? 

Daryell Howell 50. 

Representative Johnny Rye 50. It sounds like you can buy 200 of those for $19. 

Daryell Howell Yeah, but these are really commercial, really strong heavy-duty bags. 

Representative Johnny Rye Really? 

Daryell Howell Yes. 

Senator Mark Johnson Do you have another question, Representative Dalby? 

Representative Carol Dalby I do, Mr. Chair. 

Senator Mark Johnson You’re recognized. 

Representative Carol Dalby Mr. Mayor, on page 7 on the finding, 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. It was $92,226.

 And 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. 

Daryell Howell Yes. 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 when they come from the state, it lists, it doesn’t specify that those are from, to go to solid waste. And so they were left in general funds. And therefore, that’s not been 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 back in probably 2016 or 2017. 

Representative Carol Dalby 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 that 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? We’re not going to go away in this committee. 

Daryell Howell Right. At this time, I mean, the issue has been that there were just not resources after those were not transferred. There was just not resources in the general fund to actually transfer those funds back. So we would have planned to, at our next meeting, to go ahead and address that, to at least start a process of trying to get a certain amount of those funds transferred monthly back to the Solid Waste. 

Senator Mark Johnson Okay, Representative Rye, you have a question. 

Representative Johnny Rye Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On page 7, internal revenue, it looks like you got behind in paying them what was actually being pulled out of people’s checks. Have you got that straightened out? 

Daryell Howell Yes, sir. I think in 2024 we hired a CPA firm, Emrich & Scroggins, and so they’re doing that. We haven’t had any of those penalties or late payments since then. 

Representative Johnny Rye Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator Mark Johnson 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, to make a one-time mistake for a relatively small amount of money, we’re okay. We know you can work it out. But you got to strengthen this out. And if you need to get help from our friends over there with the Municipal League, they maybe can help you get that done.

Daryell Howell Yes, sir. And we will certainly. 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  they moved. He moved to Benton. But we’re in the process of getting or retaining another city attorney.

Senator Mark Johnson I think that’d be a great idea. 

Representative Lane Jean This is 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? 

Senator Mark Johnson That’s a staff question. We’re not there yet? We are not there yet. Should we defer this report then? 

Representative Lane Jean I would say defer it because this–

Senator Mark Johnson Hold on just a second, Representative. I understand that the 2024 and 2025 will be done soon. So I think it would be in order, without objection, we will defer these reports. 

Representative Lane Jean Because, mayor, we’ve got to get somebody’s attention. This is city of Strong’s taxpayer money that’s missing. And they deserve better than that. Thank you.

Senator Mark Johnson 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. All right. Thank you. Where are we now? 

Staff 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, 2023, through December 31, 2024. And we have Michelle Atchley here. 

Faulkner County Fair Association

Senator Mark Johnson Okay. Miss Atchley, you’re recognized. Be careful. That’s my hometown, you know. 

Michelle Atchley This report is issued in response to requests from the 20th Judicial District Prosecuting Attorney for Audit to review selected transactions of the Faulkner County Fair and Livestock Exposition. 

Our review covered the period January 1 of 2023 through December 31 of 2024. 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 disbursement totaling $21,741, 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 nonprofit 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 vendors $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. 

Senator Mark Johnson Thank you, Ms. Atchley. Any questions? Representative Rye.

Representative Johnny Rye This is serious right here. I mean, these little fairs across our state, they’re barely making it. 

Representative Lane Jean This is a pretty good size fair. 

Representative Johnny Rye Big fair? Well, it’s important. It’s important. And when you mess up this kind of money, this can have an impact on that fair. I want 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. 

Senator Mark Johnson Thank you, Representative Rye. 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 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 fair. Well, they made the deposit on Saturday but it wasn’t posted until 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 Rye, your point is very well taken. And we’ve got to stay on top of this. Representative Jean. 

Representative Lane Jean And I don’t guess anybody with the fair is here, is there? 

Senator Mark Johnson I don’t believe so. 

Representative Lane Jean Well, this is for you, Mr. Chairman or staff. Isn’t it unusual to pay these carnival rides in cash– $100,000 or $150,000 in cash, not a check? 

Senator Mark Johnson That’s a good question. Is that, Ms. Atchley, is that a violation? 

Representative Lane Jean Is that normal practice for fairs? 

Michelle Atchley The explanation we were given is that the carnival closes up on a Saturday night, and they are wanting their payment on Sunday. 

Senator Mark Johnson And then get out of dodge.

Michelle Atchley And they get out and so. 

Representative Lane Jean Well, they make deposits all week and they could have had the money. I don’t know. That don’t pass the smell test. 

Senator Mark Johnson Very good point, sir. Representative Rye, you’re recognized. 

Representative Johnny Rye You know, one thing that really worries me about this. We have a lot of children, teenagers, that are involved with judging cows, judging hawks, things that’s agriculture. And boy, when you go messing with something like this right here, this is affecting our young folks. So, I don’t know, this worries me. 

Senator Mark Johnson Thank you. This is why we refer things to the local prosecutor and the attorney general. Any other questions or comments about the Faulkner County Fair and livestock exposition? Can we file this one? Okay, without objection, we’ll file this report. We’ll see what the AG and the prosecutors do. I have both of them on speed dial if we have any more questions. All right. Please proceed, Ms. Gasaway. 

City of Brookland

Staff Thank you, Mr. 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 Brookland for the year ending December 31st, 2024. This finding is under the mayor. The city discovered that an employee’s payroll direct deposit, $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. 

Senator Mark Johnson In a case like that, does the bank have some kind of culpability? Usually in cases 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. Someone got that person’s name and said, Hey, I’m John Doe, and I want you to transfer my direct deposit from that bank to this bank, and that was obviously fraudulent. 

Representative Carol Dalby But this appears to me this was a city issue, city error. The city did it. It wasn’t directed to the bank. 

Senator Mark Johnson Someone at the city perhaps thought that was really that person asking for it. 

Representative Carol Dalby That’s right. So it was a city error. 

Senator Mark Johnson The city was defrauded, not the bank? Okay. And I understand, Representative Dalby. I just, if y’all have had a bank fraud thing. I mean, like I had my debit card hacked and all that. I mean, you see how the crooks are coming up with more and more better ways to cheat you. So 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. 

City of Mineral Springs

Staff Thank you, Mr. Chair. If we can skip to page 13, we have the city of Mineral Springs, December 31st, 2024 and 2023. Finding is under the mayor and recorder treasurer. As of report date, Arkansas Legislative Audit and law enforcement agencies are investigating certain financial transactions of the city that will be included in a subsequent report. 

In non-compliance with the Arkansas Constitution, the city transferred the balance of the cemetery fund totaling over $92,000 to the Mineral Spring Cemetery, a non-profit organization, without a contract for services. 

The city made loans to employees totaling $3,950 and $1,250 in 2024 and 2023 respectively and allowed employees to repay the city through subsequent payroll deductions. December 31, 2024, and 2023, 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 2024 and 2023 respectively. The remaining portions were paid from the city accounts. For the year ended December 31, 2024, we noted overpayments to the mayor totaling $1,200 and the 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 disbursement 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, staff recommends we file. 

Senator Mark Johnson Any questions? Without objection, we will file the report. Oh, come on folks. If you want a question, I’ll let you talk. 

Representative Carol Dalby We’re just talking amongst ourselves. We just shake our heads, Mr. Chair, that cities– we see this a lot. 

Senator Mark Johnson We see the same thing over and over again. You’re right. Yes, ma’am. 

Representative Carol Dalby It is frustrating. So I think that’s what Representative Steimel and I were frustrated about. 

Senator Mark Johnson I understand. And 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 turnback and stick it in your general fund and spend it. I mean, I know that’s a silly thing to say. But that’s what we do, an awful lot of that, as you well know. 

Representative Carol Dalby And you can’t loan money. You’re not a bank. 

Senator Mark Johnson 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, Ms. Gasaway. 

Town of Rondo

Staff 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 non-compliance with Arkansas Code. 

$716 were fuel purchases that, according to the mayor and recorder treasuer, 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. 

Senator Mark Johnson Will the recorder treasurer come forward? Thank you, ma’am. Come to the end of the table and make sure your microphone’s on and identify yourself for the record. 

Robin Bowen Hi, my name is Robin Annette Bowen. I’m the CRT there at Rondo. 

Senator Mark Johnson Can you respond to all this, Ms. Bowen? 

Robin Bowen Yes. We’ll start with the last thing that she had mentioned. I located the obsolete computer. It was in a storage that had been in there since, I guess, 2023. 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. 

Senator Mark Johnson Did you secure the hard drive or any data? 

Robin Bowen It was a minor is all that was there. 

Senator Mark Johnson That’s fine. Go ahead, I’m sorry. 

Robin Bowen And the other two were laptops. And the serial numbers are printed and that was in a box. 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. 

Senator Mark Johnson So you found the computer. It was just obsolete and it was like in a closet? 

Robin Bowen It was in a storage building. I didn’t know where it was when one of the auditors came, of course, on our citings. 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 10 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 because it is obsolete. 

Senator Mark Johnson Okay, any questions for Ms. Bowen? Representative Rye.

Representative Johnny Rye  Yes sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ma’am, this $716 for fuel purposes for personal vehicles, can you explain that one? 

Robin Bowen Yes. When I came on in the end of 2023, I suppose 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 the grounds. And so we had used the charge card. The mayor used the charged 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 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 that’s how it was used. 

Representative Johnny Rye Yes, ma’am. But it says for personal vehicles. 

Robin Bowen That’s what I’m talking about. We don’t have personal vehicles that we can drive. We have to use our own vehicles. 

Representative Johnny Rye Yes, ma’am. But I mean, where are we talking about driving to? 

Robin Bowen I 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. It’s up to the committee to change it. 

Representative Johnny Rye Thank you, ma’am.Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator Mark Johnson 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 the 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. 

Robin Bowen Thank you. 

Senator Mark Johnson Okay, next, Ms. Gasaway. 

Staff Continuing on page 15, the city of Waldo for the years ending December 31st 2024 and 2023 under the mayor and recorder treasurer. The city issued salary overpayments of $2,000 to the mayor in both 2024 and 2023 in non-compliance with Arkansas code. The approved salary was 24,000 annually. However, bi-weekly payments of $1,000 were made resulting in two extra payments each year. If there are no questions, staff recommends we file. 

Senator Mark Johnson 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 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. Please proceed,ma’am. 

Columbia County

Staff Okay, continuing on page 15, Columbia County 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. 

Senator Mark Johnson Any questions? Representative Jean, you got a question? I guess he doesn’t. I’m just giving you the courtesy. 

Representative Lane Jean If you’re going to insist. 

Senator Mark Johnson Well, it’s your county. I just wanted to give you an opportunity to comment. You’re recognized

Representative Lane Jean Nobody from Columbia County, I don’t see here, right? 

Staff No, sir. 

Senator Mark Johnson I don’t believe so. 

Representative Lane Jean Who was the floodplain manager? Do y’all have any idea?

Staff I do not have that name in front of me. 

Representative Lane Jean If you can privately get it to me, I’d like it. 

Staff Yes, sir. 

Representative Lane Jean Thank you. 

Senator Mark Johnson Thank you. Any other questions? Okay, no further questions. Without objection, we’ll file that one. Please proceed, ma’am. 

Staff All right, on page 16, the next six reports are private water sewer reports. The first two, Antoine Water System for the year ending December 31st, 2024 and 2023. Daily receipt information for 2024 and 2023 was not available. This has been turned over to the PA and prosecuting attorney general. And staff recommends we file these reports. 

Senator Mark Johnson Without objection, they’re filed.

Staff Elaine Municipal Waterworks, December 31st, 2023. We found that proper records were not 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 accounts receivable ledger and to deposit and billing documents due to lack of proper documentation. We’ve found that proper records were not kept for customer billings and adjustments. We’ve received appropriate responses and staff recommends we file these. 

Senator Mark Johnson Without objection, they will be filed. 

Staff The next three, Thornton Water Works, June 30th, 2024. The following deposits do not match the total of the corresponding daily receipt report. These total about 5,145. 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. 

Senator Mark Johnson Without objection, these will be deferred. 

Staff Van Buren County Public Water Authority cash receipts were not prepared for six customer payments, but the cash was included in the 10 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. 

Senator Mark Johnson Without objection, it will be deferred. 

Staff 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. 

Senator Mark Johnson With that objection, it will be deferred. 

City of Carlisle

Staff Okay, on page 17, we have seven reports with repeat findings. First is the City of Carlisle for the year ending December 31st, 2024. Under the Mayor and Clerk Treasurer, Arkansas Code requires management to maintain financial records. The financial records contained 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 in the amount 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. 

Senator Mark Johnson Would you come forward, ma’am? Or is she the mayor? 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. Turn the microphone on there. 

Sissy Ingle I’m Sissy Ingle. I’m the Clerk Treasurer at the City of Carlisle. 

John Plafcan I’m John Plafcan. I’ve been mayor since January 1, 2025. 

Senator Mark Johnson Mayor, you want to go first? 

John Plafcan These findings are absolutely repeat from 24, but they actually go back even further to 2018 we have had a previous 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 2023 to assist the present treasurer at that time and was given no training. That treasurer left in December of 2023– or no, it was May of 2023, just shortly thereafter. And Sissy became the treasurer at that point in time with no training. So our 2023 audit was negligent of these same citings. 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.

Senator Mark Johnson So mayor, you’re saying that those concerning numbers I’m looking at have actually reduced drastically? 

John Plafcan It’s 15 times. 

Senator Mark Johnson Okay, well, I mean, it’s still concerning. That’s a lot of money, getting six figures in a small town. On the other hand, it beats being in the seven figures. 

John Plafcan That’s correct. 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 y’all were talking about. 

That was part of our problem prior to that. I’ve 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. 

Senator Mark Johnson 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. 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 can. 

But I think we’ll be pretty well on target to get everything correct. I know our auditors that came in and they said, we can’t believe how awesome this looks now compared to what it had been previous year. 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 of. 

Senator Mark Johnson Thank you, Mayor. I think that’s about as good of a response as we could accept and I want to thank you 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. Okay, please proceed, Ms. Gasaway. 

Staff 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 recommends we defer this report. 

Senator Mark Johnson Without objection, it will be deferred. Let’s continue. 

Staff Okay. Page 18. The city of Cato Valley–

Senator Mark Johnson Caddo Valley. 

City of Caddo Valley

Staff Caddo. I know I was going to get that back. Sorry. December 31st, 2024, under the recorder treasurer. The following CDs and interests were not receipted and recorded in the financial statements in noncompliance with code. The general fund, 219,000 CDs and 46,000 in interest; street fund, $57,000 in CDs and over $10,000 in interest; the fire department fund, over $63,000 CDs and $18,000 interest; and the Advertising and Promotion Commission, a $250,000 CD. This is a repeat finding, and we have the recorder treasurer here today. 

Senator Mark Johnson Okay, come forward ma’am. I’m a little surprised to see that Caddo Valley has an A&P commission but I know you got DeGray Lake right next door. 

Debbie Robertson We do. And we have the Caddo River, also a big draw for the area. We’re lucky to have both of them. 

Senator Mark Johnson Yes, ma’am. You’re recognized. Please introduce yourself for the record. 

Debbie Robertson I’m Debbie Robertson. I’m recorder treasurer with the City of Caddo Valley. So this was the 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 CD’s in October of 2022 and we were audited on those CD’s in November of 2023. 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. 

Senator Mark Johnson Meaning when it’s cashed. 

Debbie Robertson Yes, sir. Now my auditor and I do not agree on that, and so I tried to impress upon her that that is not the type of accounting system that we’re using. We’re 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 receipted upon maturity. She did write us up for that. That report went into effect– well, 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. Yes, sir, it had already gone. 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. 

Senator Mark Johnson Let’s talk about that a minute. 

Debbie Robertson Yes sir. 

Senator Mark Johnson We got a lot of smart accountants here including our Legislative Auditor sitting in the back row. 

Debbie Robertson You’re talking to a speech pathologist.

Senator Mark Johnson 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 think our lady here has a good question. I just want to hear, even if it’s not a definitive answer, just some discussion. And identify yourself as the record, obviously. 

Kevin White Kevin White, Legislative Auditor. I will defer on this one to my city county experts, of which I have in the room. Joe Archer is going to be my best man to answer this question. 

Senator Mark Johnson He is. You’re recognized, Mr. Archer.

Joe Archer Joe Archer, staff. Mayor, it appears that– are the balances recorded? Because that’s what the finding says, the ballots aren’t there. 

Debbie Robertson 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 say, 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 receipted it but you did not put it on your financial statement. 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 city’s until that CD matures. 

Once it matures, if we cash it in, then I make a receipt for the principal and a back into the respective account that it came out of. 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’re using the accrual system or even a modified accrual system, that would be appropriate. But we do not have an ordinance nor resolution nor do my city council members want us to do that. They want accurate numbers and we’re on an as we receive cash and as we spend cash system. 

Joe Archer 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 available for y’all to spend because they’re tied up in a CD that hadn’t matured yet. But they are funds of the city that needs to be recognized as far as the fund balance and assets of the city. 

Debbie Robertson 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 receipt money when it’s received. That means when that CD matures. 

Senator Mark Johnson Yes, ma’am. I assume received means from an outside source, not something that is, in this case, a CD that you, the city, already owns and was receipted when that revenue is there. And can we clarify that a little bit. 

Joe Archer 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 till the next June 30. So at 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 those two months would not be because they hadn’t notified you yet. 

Debbie Robertson Then my question to you would be if I cashed that in early and was penalized, it skews all the interest at that point. That is an inaccurate reporting. 

Joe Archer You’d post the expenditure for the penalty. On a cash basis, that penalty would be recognized on the day you cashed it in, which would be mid-year, whenever, and that would be an expense that would be recognizable for that action you took. 

Debbie Robertson So my question to you would be, based on a cash journal system, it’s permissible and based on Arkansas Municipal County to receipt interest on CDs that I have not earned yet and apply it to my financial statements on each month? 

Joe Archer 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 received for the quarter during the year. 

Debbie Robertson 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 10. I probably have 10 CDs reported quarterly. All the rest were annual. 

Joe Archer If they 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 an accrual statement, then it needs to be receipted and posted in that year. But if they ignore you for the entire year until October of the next year, then you’re correct. 

Debbie Robertson That is exactly. I have one CD– and why that one pays quarterly, I have no idea. The rest– or they report quarterly. I can’t say they pay quarterly. They report quarterly.

Joe Archer 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. 

Debbie Robertson Ask me that again, I’m sorry. 

Joe Archer 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 principal as well is my understanding. And the principal has to be, if it’s in your name in the bank, the principal of these CDs need to be included on your financial statements or the reader of your financial statement aren’t getting the full picture of what the City of Caddo Valley has in assets. 

Debbie Robertson And let me introduce you. This is Jamie Henson and she’s my administrative assistant. So she does the actual paperwork for us. 

Senator Mark Johnson Turn your microphone on. 

Jamie Henson I apologize. I just started working for Caddo Valley in September. 

Debbie Robertson No one died. 

Jamie Henson No one died. I just came to work there. And three weeks later, I met our auditor. So I apologize. I have gone in and I have entered– I requested the bank to give us monthly amounts, dollar amounts. And I have gone in and have spent a lot of time making sure that every month’s interest was placed into our accounts. 

And as she said, 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 was receipted in and here’s your balance currently. I can’t run a report now that says that prior to that we were just writing them in a receipt book. 

Joe Archer Okay. I think the issue is that the principal, the main issue is that the principal value of these CDs were not reflected as assets of the city in the financial statements that we’ve got. Is that correct? 

Debbie Robertson That’s probably true. But I’m not for sure how to go about doing that when that money is not in that fund anymore, it’s sitting in a CD in another bank. 

Joe Archer You keep a separate journal that says investments. And then we could combine those together for you when we combine your financial statements. But if the reader of a financial statement for the city of Caddo Valley needs to know that you’ve got two $300,000 in reserves or something there because the financial statements we were getting did not reflect that money as being– again, it’s back to the 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 still needs to be reflected in your financial statements. You can name it CD with the 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’alls fund balance, they would know that you had that money. 

Senator Mark Johnson And it is an asset of the city. 

Joe Archer Right, exactly. Yeah. The interest, you can post it at the end of each CD, when it matures on 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 fine. But the principal on it is very important because those numbers are material enough to skew your financial statement. 

Jamie Henson Okay so the question on that 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 cost or how much we put in for the CD, here’s how much interest it’s accruing, here’s our current balance? Is that acceptable to add to our City Council financials? 

Joe Archer That is fine as long as each CD is designated to which fund it belongs to. So if you’ve got a general fund CD and a street fund CD, as long as that ledger indicates a general fund CD and we can combine the two, we do that all the time. 

Jamie Henson And I’ve already done that. 

Senator Mark Johnson As if it were cash in a checking account in those funds. Okay, thank you both. Any other questions? Representative Berry. 

Representative Stan Berry Thank you Mr. Chairman. I’d just like to applaud Caddo Valley for having those CD’s and having this problem that we just discussed. 

Debbie Robertson That’s what you wanted to hear. When they sent the letter, I thought I had bragging rights.

Representative Stan Berry Not very many of the situations that we talk about in here are– 

Senator Mark Johnson 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 Valley? Okay, without objection, we’ll file a report. Thank you for coming. Go right ahead, Ms. Gasaway. 

Staff Thank you, Mr. Chair. Continuing on page 21, the city of Holly Grove. Did the treasurer, Ms. Ruthie Foster, is she here today? She did not sign in. She had stated she was coming. 

Senator Mark Johnson Then we will defer this to March, without objection. Next?

Prairie County

Staff Next on page 22 is Prairie County for the year ending December 31st, 2024. The findings under the county judge and the county circuit clerk. During our recap of the county’s 2024 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 non-compliance with code. Road fund expenditures exceeded budgeted appropriations by $155,000 or 8% in non-compliance with code. These are repeat findings. And the judge and county circuit clerk are both here. 

Senator Mark Johnson Would y’all please introduce yourselves? 

Gaylon Hale I’m Gaylon Hale, the circuit and county clerk. 

Lawrence Holloway Lawrence Holloway, judge. 

Senator Mark Johnson 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. Can y’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. Can you all explain that? 

Lawrence Holloway Yeah, let me start back a ways to put this in perspective. At the beginning of 24, road had two Mack trucks that hauled our gravel. And we didn’t hear from the Mack company. So I called them, got in touch with them, and found that they had no trucks available to replace our old ones. They wanted us to sign an extension for the rest of the year, which is about 10, 11 months. And I said, not without a warranty. They later offered us a truck in April and one in June. We decided to go– 

Senator Mark Johnson Excuse me, Judge. Are these leased trucks? 

Lawrence Holloway Yeah, leased purchase. 

Senator Mark Johnson Okay, that’s fine. Go right ahead. I’m sorry. I just want to clarify that. Thank you. 

Lawrence Holloway We took that option. And let me tell this, in January of 24 we had a small or a pretty good little snow and ice storm and a pretty good freeze. Later this caused many of our well traveled roads, gravel roads, to have soft spots and they got pretty bad in places. 

We had to hire– our trucks, the old trucks we were still using were breaking down pretty regular. So I had to hire some hauling done. And the rock request, what we needed, was just increasing by the day. Anyhow, I 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 going to 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 the road 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 Macks came in, I stopped the hired hauling. And also, at that time, we had been giving county general, which had problems, our half of the sales tax money. And so at that particular time when this all popped up, I took back our sales tax to go back into county road. 

And we had paid them about $200,000, a little more, in the last year from 23 to 24. 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. 

Senator Mark Johnson So, Mayor, the idea was that you had the money sitting there, but you had to have an action by the quorum court to take that and move it over. Is that correct? 

Lawrence Holloway Yes.

Senator Mark Johnson And they didn’t want to do that? 

Lawrence Holloway And they didn’t want to do it. Which I didn’t want to cash the CD either, but that’s what I had to do. 

Senator Mark Johnson Well, I mean, you do what you have to do. It’s like a little savings account for the road fund. 

Lawrence Holloway Yeah, it’s still there. 

Senator Mark Johnson It’s your money. Mr. Archer made clear about it. It’s an asset of the county. But we got a law that says that if they want to do something with it they’d have to amend the budget and recognize it. Do you need to be recognized, Representative McElroy? You’re recognized.

Representative Mark McElroy  Thank you, senator. I was just going to ask him, did y’all try to amend the budget after the ice storm? 

Lawrence Holloway Well, I mean, yeah, after the ice storm. Well, I’m getting my years mixed up. But the 24. And, again, I asked them to cash the CD, that we needed it. And so they wouldn’t do it. 

Representative Mark McElroy I think you hit on it, Mr. Chair. I think if they amend the budget after they’ve exceeded it, it would have been all right. I think it just— I’m not sure, but I think— 

Senator Mark Johnson 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 maybe we can, maybe we educate them a little bit about how that’s important. 

Gaylon Hale Also, I 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 Gasaway. 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. 

Senator Mark Johnson When you say for Caterpillar, is that Riggs? Is that here in Little Rock? 

Gaylon Hale Riggs. Yes, sir. 

Lawrence Holloway And I purchased it. I mean, that was my first purchase of equipment in March of 2023. 

Gaylon Hale But now my payroll clerk and myself are watching serial numbers before we pay anything. So that will not happen again. 

Senator Mark Johnson Thank you, Ms. Hale. I know you’ll do it right. Thank you. Any other questions? 

Lawrence Holloway And I’m watching it on my end. 

Senator Mark Johnson Any other question for the judge and Ms. Hale? Representative Dalby? 

Representative Carol Dalby Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank y’all for being here today. I was doing my best to try to follow, Mayor, what you were saying. 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. 

Gaylon Hale The other was county general.  And that’s been taken care of and now we’re fine on the road too. But this was in road, specifically in road. 

Lawrence Holloway See, I was giving, county general, I gave them my half of the sales tax. It started in 2023 and into 2024. It wasn’t my problem here. I was running out of money in 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 it. But this is my money. I took it back. 

Representative Carol Dalby 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? 

Gaylon Hale Yes. 

Lawrence Holloway Oh, yeah.

Representative Carol Dalby I mean, you can’t just move things around, and there’s a reason why it’s done. 

Lawrence Holloway And we didn’t move anything around. 

Representative Carol Dalby Well, you just said you took it from the road fund and that kind of thing. So you just have to follow the rules. I’m just going by what you just testified to. 

Lawrence Holloway We’ve shared money, sales tax, with county general out of road for several times, several years. If they’re short, we can give them money. 

Representative Carol Dalby And you understand now that that’s not the way to do business? 

Lawrence Holloway Well, that’s the way we’ve done it for years. If county general needs funds to make the year, county road has given sales tax, a part of it or all of it at times. 

Representative Carol Dalby You do understand that’s a violation of the code? Aren’t I correct? 

Senator Mark Johnson Okay, Mr. Archer, you better get up. Oh, Ms. Gasaway.

Lawrence Holloway Yeah, the auditor is the one that told me you need to give–

Representative Carol Dalby  Hang on just a second. Hang on just a second. I’m asking the staff. 

Staff The sales tax monies that he’s referring to are general sales tax money, so they can be moved. 

Representative Carol Dalby So it’s not turnback? 

Correct. 

Representative Carol Dalby Okay, that’s where I was hearing two different things. But you do 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 we start wondering about, well, it didn’t get corrected the first year, didn’t get corrected the second year, now we’re in the third year. And 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 do? 

Lawrence Holloway Yeah, I may not be totally sure what you’re talking about. But the auditor told me that I needed to give my sales tax, all of it. Is that where we’re at?

Representative Carol Dalby My question is, do you understand that there are certain rules and regulations that you have to follow? 

Lawrence Holloway Oh, yeah. 

And that you cannot ignore repeated findings in the three years, so that next year if we show, next audit, whenever, 2024, 2025, whatever 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. 

Lawrence Holloway And we’re trying to make sure we don’t do that. 

Representative Carol Dalby Okay, that’s my question. Are 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 a county judge 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? 

Lawrence Holloway Yes. 

Representative Carol Dalby Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator Mark Johnson Other questions? Representative Rye.

Representative Johnny Rye  Yes, 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 for transfers in general. Isn’t that right? 

Senator Mark Johnson Representative Rye, we 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 turnback from state, which of course is road money, then you’re absolutely right, Representative Rye. 

But if they have it in their, 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, of course, when you get that check that comes to you electronically for a 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 getting that right, Mayor? 

Lawrence Holloway Yeah, that’s what we’re doing, as far as I know. 

Senator Mark Johnson Judge, rather. I’m sorry. 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 go to roads. That’s either spelled out in the ordinance that was passed when they passed the tax or that’s something that’s amended by the quorum court. You’re welcome, sir. Anything else? Any other questions for our friends from Prairie County? Okay. Thank y’all for coming. 

Gaylon Hale Thank you. 

Senator Mark Johnson You’re very welcome. Glad to have you. 

Lawrence Holloway And we’ll try not to be back. 

Senator Mark Johnson Okay, well, no. You come back. You can come back, Ms. Hale, but you have to bring me some bread pudding. Without objection, that will be filed. Okay. Reports with findings, if you want to go ahead. 

Staff Thank you, Mr. Chair. On page 22, we 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 report. 

Senator Mark Johnson Without objection.

Staff Dover Municipal Water and Sewer System, we received good responses and staff also recommends we file this report. 

Senator Mark Johnson I have a question on that one. The finding, 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, with the response for that– or the proper response would be that they should have spread that amongst other institutions. 

Joe Archer Or get excess insurance at that particular bank. Either one of them would be acceptable.

Senator Mark Johnson Which you could do either one, as I understand. 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 taxpayers’ money is insured, whether they basically pay a premium for an excess or it’s they, again, can, generally, a lot of people just put it in multiple banks, do that. Okay, that’s fine. Any other questions on Dover? If not, we’ll file that report. Go ahead, Ms. Gasaway.

Staff North Jackson County Rural Water Association on page 23. We have also received responses and we recommend this one is filed. 

Senator Mark Johnson Without objection, that will be filed. 

Staff The remaining seven reports, the agreed upon procedures for Central City Water Department December 31, 2024; Fulton Water Department for December 31, 2024; Moro Water and Sewer Department for December 2024, 2023 and 2022 and 2021; and the Western Grove Water Department for December 31st, 2023. We did not receive responses and staff recommends we defer these. 

Senator Mark Johnson Without objection, they’ll be deferred. 

Staff On page 24, we have 19 reports with responses. And we can give you all a moment to look through these and see if you have any questions. 

Senator Mark Johnson 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. 

Cross County Rural Water Association

Representative Jeremiah Moore 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 and trying to get to the bottom of the situation, they have been given 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– or 2002-2003. And this is the first– 

Senator Mark Johnson Whoa, whoa, whoa. 2002, 2003? So 24 and 23 years ago. 

Representative Jeremiah Moore That’s correct. 

Senator Mark Johnson Just wanted to make sure I heard that right. Go ahead.

Representative Jeremiah Moore So 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 at next month’s meeting. 

Senator Mark Johnson Representative McElroy? 

Representative Mark McElroy I couldn’t have said it better myself. I move that. 

Senator Mark Johnson Okay. Is there a second? By Representative Rye. Any discussion? 

Representative Lane Jean I got a question for staff.

Senator Mark Johnson  Representative Jean. 

Representative Lane Jean Have they not done private audits? 

Senator Mark Johnson That’s a good question. Ms. Gasaway, do you have an answer?

Staff No, page 31, for Representative Dalby. This one is shown as a report with no findings. 

Representative Lane Jean Well, don’t they do private audits and then send the audit over to the state? 

Staff Yes, sir. 

Representative Lane Jean  Are they current? 

Staff They’re current on this particular audit, but they are not current on the audits that he is referring to. 

Representative Carol Dalby What years were those? I missed that. 

Senator Mark Johnson You’re recognized, representative.

Representative Jeremiah Moore 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. 

Senator Mark Johnson That’s pretty serious. 

Representative Carol Dalby I have a question for staff. 

Senator Mark Johnson Okay, hold on. I think Representative Berry’s in the queue ahead of you.

Representative Stan Berry I was just– thank you Mr. Chair. I was just going to ask you, I probably heard it. How many dollars are we talking about? 

Senator Mark Johnson You can respond, Representative Moore.

Representative Jeremiah Moore Thank you, Mr. Chair. The state awarded them alone in June of 2023 for $876,000 and change. And then an ARPA grant in June of 2024 for a total of $1.534 million. 

Senator Mark Johnson You’re talking real money here. Okay. Representative Dalby, I think you had a follow-up. 

Representative Carol Dalby No, 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? I mean, what’s been the procedure before we take this step? 

Senator Mark Johnson Ms. Gasaway, whoever wants to answer. 

Kevin White Thank you Mr. Chair. So just like our municipalities, these rural water associations are also required to file annual audit report with Legislative Audit, as well as other entities. 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 since 2002-2003, a report that I have from that period. 

Senator Mark Johnson April 30th, 2025, is the only one that’s been filed since 2002. Did I hear that correctly? 

Kevin White It’s a 2002-2003 report. 

Senator Mark Johnson But since then, in that interim, nothing? 

Kevin White Correct. 

Senator Mark Johnson Okay, that’s pretty serious. Representative Dalby.

Representative Carol Dalby Once again, question for Mr. White. So 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?

Kevin White Absolutely. So under the statute, they are required to have an annual audit report, an annual audit performed. The requirement is just like the city is that that annual report has to be done within 12 months of fiscal year end. 

And then there’s a requirement on the accounting firm and the entity that that report be filed with Legislative Audit within, I think it’s 30 days of completion. There’s kind of multi-step there, right? But there’s, 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 and 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 that they could receive a $1,000 penalty and some 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 see the third entity on that. 

Representative Carol Dalby 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 sometimes those things are brought directly to Exec. And so what is that procedure? 

Senator Mark Johnson Mr. White?

Kevin White And I mean, I guess I couldn’t speak to precedent as far as this. I don’t think it occurs very often. I’m not aware of it occurring previously. But as you know, I don’t have an entire history of all of 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 Sure. One more. I’m sorry. I have a lot of questions. I just want the procedure to be– 

Senator Mark Johnson I’m going to give you a lot of leeway. 

Representative Carol Dalby I just want to understand to make sure that we’re in the right position. 

Senator Mark Johnson You continue. I want to hear it too.

Representative Carol Dalby And we often ask people to come and I’m not necessarily opposed to that. But we have them before us, our questioning then would be limited to the 2025– or wasn’t it 25 or 24 audit– whichever audit we’re talking about that they did file and they had a finding. Then that is what we are limited to because that’s what the motion is, correct? 

Senator Mark Johnson 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, I mean, Okay, April 2025, they’re okay. No findings. But what about those other 22 or 23 years or whatever? 

Representative Carol Dalby And that’s my question. 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, I mean, where’s that basis? I just don’t want us to haul somebody up here because then we can haul any– I mean, just–

Senator Mark Johnson Well I’m not opposed to hauling them. Let me interrupt you for a moment. 

Representative Carol Dalby You see what I’m trying to get to? 

Senator Mark Johnson Yes, ma’am. 

Representative Carol Dalby And I want is so that when we have somebody, whether it’s this water group or our ABC town or whatever, that we are applying it evenly across the board. That’s my question.

Senator Mark Johnson And we’ll do that. But the question I have is know usually we’re dealing with like look back three years or something. Well, in this case it’s over 20. And yeah, 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– 

Representative Carol Dalby Where’s Ms. White? She was in here earlier. 

Senator Mark Johnson Call Emily and 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. 

Representative Carol Dalby Certainly. And I’m not trying to prolong our meeting. We all know we want out of this meeting. 

Senator Mark Johnson But we need to resolve this. 

Representative Carol Dalby 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 ones to do it.

Senator Mark Johnson  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. 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 today, on February 12th. But maybe you could tell me the best way or the committee the best way we could proceed. 

Kevin White So, I mean, again, it’s a report that’s been filed with this committee. It’s just, 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 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 I just want to make sure we’re doing it right. 

Senator Mark Johnson Representative Berry. 

Representative Stan Berry Well, I’m certainly not an authority on our audit. But in the past, this same situation has 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 state of Arkansas money? 

Senator Mark Johnson I guess it could be all of the above, could it not, Mr. Wright? 

Representative Stan Berry Would it make a difference if it was USDA money, whether we had the authority to audit or not? 

Senator Mark Johnson Representative Jean. 

Representative Lane Jean If it’s federal dollars, it requires an audit. 

Senator Mark Johnson  I can’t believe that they’re not required to have an audit anyway, but. 

Representative Lane Jean No, but if they’re getting federal dollars, the feds require them to have one. Now if this is state, do we have, does the state demand if the governor gives some money– or do we have a law that requires them to have an audit if we give them state funds? 

Kevin White So getting a little outside in my wheelhouse here. 

Representative Lane Jean Well, I’m way out of mine so we’re in there together.

Kevin White Appreciate that. My understanding is that there are funds, some funds are provided from the Natural Resource Commission, ANRC, and they have different type of loan programs over there like this 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. 

Senator Mark Johnson 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 the recommendation for the full committee so we can move forward with this without having to push it back until March? But Kevin, would you please tell Emily what we’re doing, please? And any members of the committee, jump in if it’s not quite clear. 

Kevin White So, Emily, the situation we have before us, so we have Cross County Rural 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 if this should go through Exec. 

Senator Mark Johnson 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 my first reaction is, 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 at 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. 

Emily White And Representative Dalby, I heard your question. And so I may have missed a bit 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 14-234-119, 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 23 years, if I understood correctly. 

Representative Carol Dalby Okay, and Emily, I appreciate that. My question is, should the motion be amended to include the scope of what the question is, of what issue is because we’re calling them in over a 2025 audit? 

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, 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 were only here on the 2025. 

I’m just trying to get it into the right perspective so that we’re asking the right questions and not wasting our time with someone who says, I didn’t know that’s what we’re talking about. 

Emily White  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 and found it 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? 

Representative Carol Dalby Mr. Chairman, may I ask Representative McElroy a question? 

Senator Mark Johnson Of course. If he wants to respond. Representative McElroy?

Representative Carol Dalby Representative McElroy, would you be willing to amend your motion that it would extend to previous 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? 

Senator Mark Johnson Is that your amendment to your own motion? 

Representative Mark McElroy I would like to amend it that we could question the water department why they did not file for over 20 years. 

Senator Mark Johnson Okay. And you second that, I presume, Representative Dalby? It’s Representative Rye. You second? Okay. Any other questions or discussions before we vote? Representative Jean. 

Representative Lane Jean This is for Representative Moore. How much money did you say they had received from the state of Arkansas? 

Representative Jeremiah Moore In 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 hand. 

Representative Lane Jean From the state of Arkansas? 

Representative Jeremiah Moore Yes, sir. 

Senator Mark Johnson One of those was ARPA, as I recall you saying, Representative Moore. 

Representative Jeremiah Moore That’s correct. 

Senator Mark Johnson Okay. All right. Is everybody clear on the motion? Any discussion? Representative Berry. 

Representative Stan Berry I know that there’s a lot of questions about that money and we need to get to the bottom of it. But I guess it seems like it should be requested in written request to the Executive Committee for them to look at it before it comes for our decision. 

Senator Mark Johnson Ms. White, can you respond to Representative Berry’s suggestion because I’m kind of in a two-way quandary about that myself. 

Representative Carol Dalby So, what our rules require, Representative 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. 

But 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 based on your own rules. 

Senator Mark Johnson Okay. And I understand what you’re saying, Representative Berry. I’m kind of with the mind that is there a way we can expedite this so we’re not back here next month dealing with the same thing again. 

Representative Stan Berry I’m sorry. I don’t want to talk over you, Mr. Chair. 

Senator Mark Johnson You go right ahead. 

Representative Stan Berry So I guess the fact is that it has already been audited. 

Senator Mark Johnson Just for that one year. 

Representative Stan Berry Just one year? 

Senator Mark Johnson Yes, sir. 

Representative Stan Berry But it was audited by the state? 

Senator Mark Johnson No, sir. It was Meyer & Ward CPAs. Private audit. 

Representative Lane Jean And then turned that in to the state. 

Senator Mark Johnson 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 the motion, say aye. Opposed? Okay. Passes. Thank you. 

Staff Thank you. So on page 31 and 32, we have 57 remaining reports with no findings. And staff recommends we file these. 

Senator Mark Johnson Without objection, we’ll file them. Any other questions or items to come for 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 to come before, we’re adjourned.