Members of the Quorum Court finance committee met Monday afternoon to further discuss out of control spending at the county landfill. The committee met with County Judge Randy Carney and Landfill Director Will Allen on March 2 to request that Allen cut down on overtime and equipment purchases, but committee chair Justice Michael White said that he noticed reports of continued high spending and wanted to ask his fellow Justices their opinion on the matter.
"I went and requested all the invoices for equipment purchases at the landfill since December," he said. "When we put money in the line item for equipment purchases, it would take all year to accrue that money, and we agreed in January to loan the funds from county general and pay it back as the landfill funds accrued. But we ended up in the red last month in county general, and today the landfill is in the red by $328,000, in spite of that January transfer of $200,000."
County financial manager Brenda Burke told the committee that the landfill also had additional outstanding bills.
"I went and spoke with the Judge and asked him to pull those invoices himself and look at them so he wouldn't be surprised and we could talk today," said White, adding that Carney was absent from the meeting due to a medical appointment. "Will has been buying and trading equipment and then buying some and trading that new equipment, one piece he traded in at a $30,000 loss, and another at a $20,000 loss. Maybe he bought it and it wasn't big enough so he bought another, but it's hard to follow these invoices."
White and other justices noted that the invoices turned in from H & E Equipment out of Memphis for the machinery Allen has purchased do not contain serial numbers or any other information that could be used to track the equipment or list it for insurance purposes.
"These invoices are vague, there are no serial numbers, it's almost impossible to track," said Justice Neil Burge.
Justice Rick Ash suggested that no piece of equipment should be accepted by county employees for delivery without an information packet to turn into Burke for inventory and insurance purposes.
"We're talking to the wrong people here today, it's the judge that needs to be here," said Justice Barry Ball. "He's the one who's been approving all of this."
Discussion continued about what legal recourse the committee has to stop spending once it has exceeded the budget, and whether or not a freeze could be placed on the landfill accounts. White agreed to check with legal representation from the Arkansas Association of Counties.
"Mostly we have control of our budget and usually we have responsible elected officials who keep it under control," said White, "but I think there is just so much going on out at the landfill with the new cell construction and all the improvements that this has just slipped away from us, and away from the county judge. Paul Crawford and FTN Associates told us that at first they questioned Will's methods but now they see that he has really made improvements and is doing a great job out there. So the work is being done, it's just the money that concerns this committee."
White also requested payroll sheets for the landfill and found that in the two week pay period following the March 2 meeting in which Allen was asked to control his overtime hours, he turned in time sheets for 57 overtime hours. It was then noted by Burke that on Monday of this week, Allen issued a memo to his employees stating that no more overtime hours would be worked.
White and the committee agreed to request a followup meeting with Carney regarding these issues, which will take place on Wednesday afternoon.
sspears@blythevillecourier.com