Commissioners vote to have ‘forensic audit’ conducted
In the wake of criminal forgery and theft charges against the county’s last fiscal analyst, the Fayette County Commissioners voted Thursday to hire a CPA firm to conduct a “forensic audit” to ensure there was no impropriety within the county’s finances. The audit will focus on invoices, vouchers and requisition forms handled by Bruce J. Beard of Uniontown, who resigned in September as the county’s fiscal analyst and purchasing agent.
The commissioners voted to hire McClure and Wolf of Uniontown to conduct the specialized audit at a cost of $8,400. The action is in response to Beard’s October arrest. Although Beard resigned before the charges were filed and the charges are not related to the theft of county funds, the commissioners initiated the audit to examine things that required Beard’s signature.
Beard was employed by the county beginning in 2000. He resigned in September, after he took a brief leave of absence. The forgery, theft by deception and theft by unlawful taking charges were related to side accounting jobs Beard held with New York Pizza and Pasta in South Union Township and the North Union Volunteer Fire Department. Beard allegedly fraudulently obtained more than $6,000 from the pizza shop and $2,500 from the fire department. He earlier waived his right to preliminary hearings and will head to court on the matters.
During his employment with the county Beard worked primarily with processing invoices, vouchers and requisition requests, in addition to analyzing budget date. Those things did not require him to handle cash or to sign checks. However, commission chairman Vincent A. Vicites and commissioners Sean M. Cavanagh and Ronald M. Nehls still agreed to conduct the audit.
The county earlier sent out an RFP (request for proposals) for the audit. Cavanagh had spoken out about having someone totally independent conduct the audit.
In other items during Thursday’s special meeting, the commissioners voted to table awarding an RFP for a broker of record and health care consultant for the health care services for the county. In October, the county’s last health care consultant resigned. Currently there are projections of a 36 percent increase in health care costs for 2003, which could cost the county $750,000.
Cavanagh said he is going to ask the union for the county prison and the Mine Workers union to reconsider opening their contracts for health care to put everybody in the same plan as a way to save money. On Thursday, the commissioners approved a tentative budget that has a deficit of more than $700,000.
The commissioners voted to send out an RFP to financial institutions for a tax anticipation loan of approximately $2,400,000 on county taxes to be collected for 2003. The loan is obtained every year to give the money operating money until substantial tax revenue is generated.