Clinton Fiscal Court took steps to secure an access road from behind the Clinton County Middle School westward to the new U.S. 127 Bypass and finalized payment for the added bay to the EMS facility at a call meeting last Wednesday morning with all court members present.

Emergency Services Director Lonnie Scott said that Winterhawk Construction of Albany had completed work on the building’s addition and USDA had made its final inspection. He noted that Emergency Services has a couple of prospective projects in the works and final payment to close out this project was necessary to proceed.

The total cost of the project was $63,488, which included additional plumbing and electrical work.

A motion to make final payment to the construction company was made by Magistrate Ricky Craig and passed by unanimous vote.

The court, on a motion by Magistrate Charlotte Bernard, then unanimously voted to advertise for bids for construction of the connector road from Clinton County Middle School to the west side of the U.S. 127 Bypass.

The project began several months ago when the Clinton County Board of Education, in conjunction with county government, requested the Department of Transportation for permission and assistance in constructing such a connector road from the school to the new bypass.

With the addition of the connector road, the school is to have dual access from both the bypass on the west and from the current inward route on the current U.S. 127 from the east. With access in both directions, it may alleviate some traffic congestion in the area to not only the middle school, but the other schools in that area as well.

According to Judge/Executive Lyle Huff, the Transportation Cabinet has allocated up to $100,000 to the county towards construction, with the board of education apparently responsible for another $165,000 of the estimated $265,000 project. Huff said he hopes bids will come in under that estimate.

Due to the bid opening time set, the court then changed its next regular meeting time to 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, April 19.

The court also voted 5-1 to approve a fund transfer from the Occupational Tax to the jail fund for payroll and bills. The motion to approve the transfer was made by Magistrate Willard Johnson with Magistrates Bernard, Craig, Patty Guinn and Mickey Riddle voting yes and Magistrate Phillip Parrigin voting no.

The court then spent the majority of the brief 20-minute session discussing, but taking no type action on the recently released fiscal court audit that ended June 30 of last year.

That audit, which was published in its entirety in the March 15 issue of the Clinton County News, was comprised of six pages of findings and comments pertaining to what auditors found during the time the audit was being conducted.

As of the audit ending period, several problems were addressed by the state auditor, but most of which are apparently being addressed by the fiscal court and county officials.

Magistrates fielded questions to judge Huff, EMS Director Lonnie Scott, Finance Officer Tuesday Davis and County Treasurer Dallas Sidwell about some of the findings and comments made in the report and voiced their concerns about some of the findings.

Judge Huff told the court that he had asked that the audit be conducted because he wanted to know where the county stood. He also acknowledged that there were some (recommendations) in the audit that the county was unable to comply with for different reasons.

Those finance officials who answered questions told court members that in most cases where the county had been written up was being corrected in areas such as internal controls over payroll, procedures over receipts and disbursements and procurement practices, to name a few.

The county also hopes the implementation of new work time clocks instead of time cards and more supervision over department heads will avoid another such audit report in the coming year.

Judge Huff said that the audit was very thorough and thus several deficiencies were noted. But he added the all county funds were accounted for and there were no funds missing.

Magistrate Willard Johnson said, “auditors are going to find something…period.”

Other magistrates questioned how the problems that were listed in the audit were going to be addressed and corrected. The judge and financial officers said that many already have been addressed.

(County officials commented last week on the audit’s findings and some things that are being done to adhere to most of the auditor’s recommendations. A separate article on those comments can be found beginning on page 1.)