Neosho Co. discusses forensic audit
ERIE — Neosho County commissioners on Tuesday interviewed an accountant about conducting a forensic audit on four departments in the county: Clerk, treasurer, county attorney and the landfill.
Matt Brown, senior director of J.S. Held LLC, visited with commissioners by phone.
Commissioners have been concerned about spending or accounting procedures in these departments in the recent past. Commissioner Nic Galemore said he would like to assure the new people in these offices that they have a clean set of books to work on going forward.
Brown said the audit’s scope would be limited by what commissioners wanted to find and how far back in time they wanted the company to review. The depth of the audit would impact the cost of the work. He said his firm charges by the hour and he wanted to be clear about the cost and scope before starting the work.
The auditing can be done remotely but commissioners wanted at least one face-to-face meeting with the auditors.
Sales tax
Commissioners also discussed the new sales tax that’s being collected in the county now for future road improvements, among other projects.
Commissioner Gail
See COUNTY, Page 10.
Klaassen said she wanted the commissioners to prioritize improvements needed in their districts. That way the board could formulate a plan going forward that makes the best use of the sales tax. One of the projects will be the bridge east of Thayer for which the county received a grant and will have to provide $200,000 in matching funds.
Road and Bridge Supervisor Mike Brown listed several roads that commissioners would need to consider for the improvement list. These include widening a portion of Elk Road, work on Queen Road near 40th Road and 150th Road west of Erie High School. He wants to see if these roads and a couple of others he mentioned would be eligible for outside funding.
Klaassen said the state would begin depositing the sales tax money in two months.
In other matters, the commission: — Agreed to allow Emergency Manager Melanie Kent Culp to seek a mesonet site in Neosho County, where weather and soil information can be recorded and used for research. The cost of the 32foot tower is paid for as well as two years of maintenance. She will look for a site to place the tower, which collects soil temperature, soil moisture, fire conditions, temperatures, precipitation and other information and would be part of a statewide network of towers. Kansas State University would do maintenance on the tower. Commissioners hoped the tower could be centrally located in the county. She told commissioners there would be no cost to the county for the project until 2028. Information from the towers can be found here: https://mesonet. k-state.edu/.
— Agreed to purchase up to 10,000 tons of AB3 road rock from Whittaker Aggregates for $9.70 a ton delivered.
— Agreed after a closed session to hire Advantage Computers to engage in recovery operations for computers in the clerk’s and treasurer’s offices.
— Agreed to continue publishing county notices in the Erie Record and the Chanute Tribune.
