Money from past delinquent tax sales has settled a purchase order dispute in county government.

Friday, January 05, 2001

Money from past delinquent tax sales has settled a purchase order dispute in county government.

Commissioners on Thursday transferred $80,000 in unanticipated revenue from the clerk of courts to the Common Pleas Court budget for 2001. The funds will pay for most of the purchase orders unpaid last year.

Last week, the judges ordered county auditor Ray Dutey to court to explain why his office did not process $94,000 of the court’s purchase orders.

The purchase orders were rejected by the auditor’s office in early December, even though they were "inside the amount of yearly appropriation and transfers made by the Board of County Commissioners for the court ," the judges wrote.

The auditor’s office showed only about $37,000 in six funds, mostly for equipment and supplies, to pay for about $94,000 in purchase orders – because salary line items had gone over budget – so those purchase orders were not processed because of lack of funds, Dutey said.

Orders included such items as $3,400 for office furniture, $1,500 for three radios, $7,000 for a Dictaphone – a special recorder required in court – $2,400 for 19 phones, hundreds of dollars for food and drink for jurors, at least six computers and about $6,000 for bullet proof vests for security. The current vests were purchased used four years ago and are obsolete, officials said.

The judges countered that in 2000 the commissioners had appropriated enough in their line item accounts, including salaries, to cover the amounts.

The court proceeding was merely the procedure to find out what happened, Judge Richard Walton said.

"The whole thing is moot and over with," Walton said, referring to the transfer.

By another order Thursday, the judges released Dutey from a court appearance and allowed the processing purchases that had been put on hold by previous court action.