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Citizens for Better Government
Blount County Tennessee
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Incompetent accounting means no answer on missing cars
For several years now, Sheriff James Berrong and County Finance Director (and political machine Chairman) David Bennett have had trouble answering what should be a pretty simple accounting question. How many cars, trucks, motorcycles, vans and SUVs does the Sheriff have in his taxpayer financed fleet?
Consider these facts.
- At the end of fiscal year 2005, Bennett provided an inventory of Sheriff’s vehicles to the County Commission that listed 277 vehicles.
- The State Audit Report for 2005 listed 231 vehicles.
- No inventory of Sheriff’s vehicles was provided to the Commission in fiscal 2006. Two taxpayers independently asked for a list of all vehicles owned by the county at the end of fiscal year 2006. The list provided by the Mayor/Finance Director’s office to each taxpayer showed just 97 Sheriff’s vehicles.
- The State Audit Report for fiscal 2006 showed that the Sheriff had 263 vehicles.
- On January 20, 2007, the Sheriff told the Knoxville News Sentinel that “the department has a maximum of about 180 vehicles”.
- On April 13, 2007, in response to a request from 1470 Truth Radio, the Mayor/Finance Director’s office provided an inventory that showed the Sheriff had 227 vehicles.
- On June 11, 2007 produced a vehicle inventory for the Commission that listed 246 Sheriff’s vehicles.
- The State Audit for the year ending June 2007 listed 243 vehicles.
- When purchases, sales and transfers are considered the inventory should have been 271 vehicles. Thus, 28 vehicles are still missing.
No wonder that this year’s State Audit Report judged the Blount County vehicle accounting system to be a “significant deficiency in internal control over financial reporting”. When will Sheriff Berrong and Finance Director David Bennett get their act together and tell us what happened to the missing vehicles. Twenty-eight cars could be worth as much as $800,000. It has only been two and a half years.
We’ll save the question of why the Sheriff needs more than 200 vehicles to support the approximately 140 employees who could possibly need one for later.