The chief examiner of the Alabama Department of Examiners of Public Accounts authorized an expanded audit Monday of county entities involved in the creation and upkeep of the two controversial water utilities that have drawn accusations from some officials for allegedly misspending or mismanaging county funds.

The expanded scrutiny, which will supplement the county commission’s regular audit for fiscal year 2009, comes at the request of Senate Majority Leader Zeb Little, who called last week upon Chief Examiner Ronald Jones to audit all county entities with financial ties to the Cullman County water department, the Government Utilities Services Corporation of Cullman County (GUSC) and the South Cumberland Cooperative District (SCCD).

Little said his request—to which Jones agreed in a written response Monday—stems from a number of concerns he has over which county department authorized the payment of $137,000 to a Birmingham-based law firm providing pro bono legal defense work for the GUSC, SCCD and Cullman County Commission in a civil suit over the circumstances leading to the formation of the two water entities in late April.

“One thing I’m concerned about is the fact that, in deposition testimony, the associate county commissioners have testified that they didn’t know who paid the legal fees,” said Little. “[Water department manager David] Bussman testified that part of that was paid by the water department, and part by the SCCD. A fundamental issue there is, how did they spend $137,000 of taxpayer money without the two associate commissioners not knowing how it happened?

“Another concern, I think, creates a question with whether the two associate commissioners were hiding what they were doing from the [commission] chairman. This audit should sort out who knew about these charges and how they were authorized, and it will clear everything up.”

Regular audits—and any other completed public audit done by the Department of Examiners of Public Accounts—is, by statute, admissible as evidence in court. “There’s no question about it,” Little said. “The state statute says that every audit of the Examiners of Public Accounts is presented by the presiding judge to the next grand jury. Among other entities, they examine counties and agencies of the state and county. The SCCD and GUSC were created by state statute, and of course the water department is also a county agency.”

County Commission chairman James Graves said Monday there had been no activity related to the audit, but he expects that to change today.

“I’ve not seen anything from the auditors today,” Graves said at the close of business hours Monday. “As part of our regular audit, I did have some contact last week with the office of the head auditor for this region, which is out of Huntsville; they greeted us last week and we discussed aspects of the upcoming audit. I suspect, though, that it will be in the morning before we see anyone here.”

Graves explained that, while the regular audit will review documents from the 2009 fiscal year, the Department of Examiners can look into present-day transactions—that means any SCCD, commission or water department invoices from the first half of 2010—as part of a specially requested audit. “Absolutely; that is something they can do,” said Graves.

Jones, in responding to Little’s request Monday, issued a brief reply which simply stated his department had received the request and would expand its consideration of county finances to include the concerns Little had raised when he requested the special audit of the water entities last week.



* Benjamin Bullard can be reached by e-mail at bbullard@cullmantimes.com, or by telephone at 734-2131, ext. 270