When you forgive a misuse of public funds what do you get

More misspending. In what has got to be a case of sheer stupidity the Faulkner County Sheriff's office misspend much of the $86,000 in additional appropriations they received. Last month the F&A committee of the Quorum Court approved an $86,000 appropriation to get the department through the rest of the year. The money was intended for fuel and utilities, but a report of the department's budget revealed a balance of $20,540 in the fuel, oil and lube line item and $17,760 in utilities while other line items were in the negative, again.

Rachel Parker of the Log Cabin writes,

Justice of the Peace Catherin Blankenship said, "We gave them money they asked for to get by on fuel and utilities, and they spent it on other things."

JP Johnnie Wells said, "If this was my business somebody would have been fired."

Hutchens said the sheriff's office plans to set up a computer program to help track how much money is in each line item.

The committee discussed the legal ramifications of making the responsible employee reimburse the county if the department overspends. Hutchens said he will talk to the Association of Arkansas Counties to determine if any other counties have tried this method and what possible legal problems could arise. All purchase orders in the sheriff's office are signed by one or more members of the administrative staff, which includes Chief Deputy Steve Wallace, Lt. Jack Pike, Major Perry Wyse and Jail Administrator Bobby Brown.

The committee also discussed how to put the department's budget under closer scrutiny. They agreed the budget should be appropriated one quarter at a time rather than the full year's appropriation at once. Because there was no time to change the already-prepared budget, the full court passed the 2006 budget later Tuesday with the entire sheriff's office budget intact. Hutchens said the committee will later recommend lowering the appropriation to one quarter.

Hutchens will also keep an eye on the department's spending and notify the committee if any line item goes into the negative or if a large percentage is spent too early in the year, he said.

We could not agree more with JP Wells, someone, the now five horsemen, should be fired. Earlier this month we told you what the law says about misappropriation of funds, it is illegal and the penalty for it is, among other things, loss of employment. These people Pike, Wallace, Wyse, Brown, and Montgomery should be fired for their blatant disregard of the spending procedures and the law.

The people of this county deserve a full discloser for the sheriff's office spenting but all we get is the same old tired excuses and more empty promises from both the County Judge's office and the Sheriff's staff. "We handle too many PO's and there is too many people issuing them to keep up with but we are going to get on top of this by watching it better and use the computers to help us” is the same sort of crap we were fed last month.

Isn't it time for the Quorum Court, Prosecutor's office, and/or the State to end this madness? Quit giving them the benefit of the doubt and enforce the laws. . .