(Kingsford Heights, IN) - A municipality in La Porte County is in the process of trying to clear up major confusion in its financial ledgers.

 

Kingsford Heights Clerk-Treasurer Jeana Blake resigned after Deputy Clerk Lynne Spevak was let go by the town council earlier this month. Rosalie Jacobs, a former longtime clerk-treasurer in the community of about 1,400 residents, came out of retirement to straighten out the bookkeeping mess as interim clerk-treasurer.

 

For now, town hall is closed, except on Wednesdays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., to allow Jacobs to focus on getting the records back in order as quickly as possible.

 

“The town is sort of in a mess right now,” said Town Councilwoman Evelyn Ballinger.

 

Ballinger explained that the town is relying on bank statements to keep functioning, but the amount of money on hand from day to day is sort of up to guessing due to sloppy record-keeping regarding incoming and outgoing funds.

 

“The bank tells us one thing, but we don’t know if that’s correct because we don’t know what bills have been paid or what we actually have. So, that’s where we’re at,” she said.

 

The problems in the clerk-treasurer’s office have been ongoing since Jacobs's retirement about 12 years ago, per Dennis Francis, a longtime former town marshal in the community.  He also served multiple terms on the town council and was council president the previous four years. Francis said the town has encountered issues such as bills not being paid on time and payments written out to the wrong vendors because of performance issues with the clerk-treasurer’s office.

 

In 2016, he said, the IRS fined the town $6,000 for not submitting about $40,000 in payroll taxes from the earnings of municipal employees.

 

Francis explained that it also costs taxpayers much more when the state comes in every two years to audit the books if additional time is required to sort through financial records and get them back in order.

 

“Our last audit, they were here for about eight weeks. It cost us close to $50,000 the last audit,” he said.

 

Francis, who didn’t seek reelection to the town council last year, blamed the problem on a state law requiring clerk-treasurers to be elected and live in the community they serve. He said the position should be hired and filled by someone from outside the community if necessary, especially in small municipalities where someone with the necessary accounting skills can be very difficult to find. The former town marshall noted in turn that he had spoken with state lawmakers to have that law changed.

 

“We just blame the people that put the people put into office. It all comes down to getting somebody in the office who is qualified.  Otherwise, you destroy community. You hurt the citizens and that’s where we’re at right now,” he said.

 

The newly elected Blake along with Spevak, both members of the Democratic Party, had been in the office since the first of the year. Ballinger said Jacobs was hired for 30 days, which is the period of time Democratic Party precinct committee members from the town have to appoint someone to fill the remainder of Blake’s term. Right now, Francis says, there’s no guarantee whoever fills the opening will do any better than the previous clerk-treasurers.

 

“What happens four years from now? What happens three years from now? You put somebody who is not qualified in there, it just destroys everything,” he said.