Late Monday afternoon, State Auditor Allison Balls’ office released the results of three years of audits of the Estill County Clerk’s office, and former Clerk Brian Crowe.
The audits were scathing in scope, even citing repeat offenses in much of the period of years 2021, 2022, and 2023. Among the auditor’s findings in the 2023 audit alone:
*The budget was overspent, and the 2023 Fee Account had a deficit of $174,326.
•The fourth quarter financial statement was not materially accurate and required numerous adjustments and reclassifications.
• Usage taxes were not paid to the state timely.
• License fees were not paid to the state timely and weekly reports were not filed timely.
• Tangible taxes are owed to the state, the county, and other taxing districts.
• Deposits were not made timely.
• There were missing cash deposits of $5,804.
• The former county clerk’s payroll is more than statutorily allowed.
• The former county clerk was paid the clerk’s expense allowance totaling $2,400 even though it wasn’t allowed due to the deficit in the fee account.
• The former county clerk wrote 21 extra checks to himself totaling $62,416.
• The former county clerk wrote himself a check for $4,679 for training expenses that he wasn’t eligible for due to not completing the training required to be eligible for the training expense.
• Invoices were not paid timely.
• Payroll was incorrectly calculated, and the former county clerk’s office owes employees $4,000.
• The 2023 fee account has not been settled.
The audits are extensive and WBON-TV9 is reviewing. Crowe declined comment at this time when contacted by WBON.
Crowe resigned his position unexpectedly at the end of March of this year.
We will have more on this story Tuesday on LIVE at FIVE, and on wbontv.com
