BOLLINGER AUDIT FINDS NO REVIEW

MARBLE HILL -- A lack of review by the Bollinger County Commission and county clerk's office was responsible for allowing Sheriff Januar Peters to misappropriate more than $5,000 in county funds between January, 1988 and July 1990, a state audit report says.

The report, released Thursday by State Auditor Margaret Kelly, also stated that the county lost $1,940 during the same period because the sheriff failed to bill other counties for boarding their prisoners in the county jail.

The report stated: "The commission and county clerk's office were not maintaining copies of the billings to other political subdivisions for boarding prisoners. The lack of review by the commission allowed the sheriff to misappropriate receipts from the other political subdivisions."

The report also said the county clerk's office did not maintain copies of the billings to other political subdivisions for boarding prisoners.

An earlier audit report said the sheriff had misappropriated at least $5,269 during the period. Auditors discovered that payments for boardings of prisoners in the Bollinger County jail and other miscellaneous payments had been deposited into the sheriff's personal bank account rather than transmitted to the county's general-revenue fund.

Contacted Thursday, Bollinger County Presiding Commissioner Elwood Mouser said he had not yet seen the second audit report. Mouser said he and other county officials have been meeting regularly with special prosecutor Robert Fuchs to decide whether to prosecute Peters and whether to revise accounting procedures within the county.

Fuchs was appointed in January to investigate the matter by Circuit Judge A.J. Seier at the request of Bollinger County Prosecuting Attorney Paul Hahn.

The audit showed the misappropriated money consisted of: $1,890 in reimbursement for boarding of prisoners; $220 in trusty fees; $48 in accident-report fees; $121 in gun-permit fees; and $2,990 in miscellaneous receipts.

Mouser said Peters has reimbursed the county for at least $2,310.

Mouser said accounting procedures have been modified as recommended in the first audit report. A follow-up report by the state auditor's office shows, of the 19 recommendations made in the first report, five have been implemented, nine have been partially implemented, and no action has been taken by the county on five.

"Right now were just trying to work through this," Mouser said. "We've been working on it for weeks, and we'll continue to do so."

County Clerk Diane Holzum said her office is in the process of complying with the state's recommendations. "We've responded to all of the recommendations," Holzum said. "You have to consider that the first time we saw the report was in January. It just takes time to make changes."

The auditor's follow-up report issued Thursday contained 20 "management advisory recommendations" for the county. Among those were that the county clerk be required to maintain a record of billings and collections for boarding prisoners for other counties, implement collections procedures if payment is not received in a reasonable amount of time, and obtain copies of all bills to other counties for boarding their prisoners.

"The county clerk should maintain some form of accounts-receivable records and should make a periodic review of these records to identify receivables which need additional collection efforts," the report said.

Also specified in the report was the fact that, due to weaknesses in the county's internal auditing system, $23,269 in excess property taxes were collected. It states that property tax rates were not sufficiently reduced to reflect sales tax revenues, the result being that the property tax levy calculated was not the actual levy set.

Holzum said the taxes were collected in 1986. Part of the reimbursements were made in 1990, and the remainder will be made this year, she said.