Newly Founded Jefferson County Audit Committee Meets

Monday, August 19th, 2013, the Audit Committee met for its organizational meeting at the Historic Jefferson County Courthouse. The newly founded committee is a state mandated committee committed to reforming a reoccurring audit finding that has been carried for more than three years. Marty Mills, County Commission Chairman, called the meeting to order and held roll call, to which all five members were present. The first order of business was election of officers. Mills was elected to serve as Chairman of the Committee. Vice-Chairman is Roger Griffith, who is also the Budget Committee Chairman, and Dennis Cureton is the Secretary of the committee. Cureton also serves as the Finance Committee Chairman. Beyond the three officer’s positions, two citizens, Gary Jett and Joe High, also sit on the committee.

Daryl Helton, Jefferson County’s Finance Director, gave an overview of the audit. He stated that the Solid Waste Disposal Fund had a deficit of $4,894,318 in unrestricted net assets as of June 30th, 2012. According to Helton, this mostly deals with the post-closure care cost of both of the county’s landfills. Chairman Mills opened the floor for motions and Vice-Chairman Roger Griffith made a motion to request a reevaluation from the State of Tennessee that could lower the current post-closure cost of the landfills. Dennis Cureton seconded the motion: there were no objections, therefore, the motion passed. Director Helton will confer with the State to see if hiring an independent firm to give an estimate on closure costs would be in the best interest of the County. He will also investigate the possibility of raising tipping costs for residents without raising commercial costs. Raising residential costs would allow the committee the option of committing otherwise unusable funds to help decrease the deficit. The time and date of the next meeting was discussed and September 16th, 2013 at 6:00 pm was the agreed-upon date. The meeting was Adjourned.