Roughly $80,000 stolen from BOC office

MadisonJournalTODAY

RSS Feed

Email Alerts

Facebook

Roughly $80,000 stolen from BOC office

Posted by

Zach Mitcham

in News, Top Stories

Friday, September 12. 2008

Comments (21)

Georgia Bureau of Investigation Agent Jim Fullington said this week that roughly $80,000 was stolen from the Madison County Board of Commissioners office.

“We’re pretty much knee deep in it right now,” said Fullington of the Madison County government theft case. “We’re actively looking at records and conducting interviews.”

Fullington said the GBI has ruled out any legal misappropriation or misplacement of funds, determing that theft has indeed occurred. He said the GBI does anticipate making an arrest or arrests in the case.

“We’ll probably be pretty busy with this for the next week or two,” he said.

In a separate investigation, Fullington said his office has yet to receive toxicology reports from the GBI crime lab on two people found dead off Hwy. 106 on July 27.

Tammy Marie Denmark, 39, Lyons, and Timothy Lee Sorrow, 31, Pine Street, Ila, were both found dead in a wooded area less than a mile north of Hull-Sanford Elementary School.

Autopsies on the two revealed no evidence of foul play.

Defined tags for this entry: BOC, GBI2, News, theft, Top Stories

Related entries by tags:

Trackbacks

Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments

Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

#1 Anonymous on 09/13/08 at 07:45 AM [Reply]

I hope that whomever took this money is prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Here we are struggling to pay our property taxes, car tags and living expenses and people who we are supposed to trust taking funds...(if that is the case)...
I feel for the commissioners in our county because they have got a tough road to follow with the budget coming up and now funds missing.

#2 Beth on 09/13/08 at 02:04 PM [Reply]

All you dummies who voted for Pethel and Thomas, don't you feel stupid now! We needed to throw out everyone. Oh well, we dumped 2, and may yet dump a third.

#2.1 appleannie on 09/18/08 at 06:15 AM [Reply]

What about the guy in charge of keeping financial record?How do you steal that amount of money with no one catching it?Only because the commissioners asked for the investigation,are we aware of the theft at all.Stop playing politics.

#3 Anonymous on 09/13/08 at 05:38 PM [Reply]

I didnt vote for either one.....but I will say this, the commissioners in office right now are the ones pushing for this investigation.
I hope my commissioner stands firm and doesn't let this low-life go and not pay the taxpayers of this county back.

#4 Anonymous on 09/15/08 at 11:41 AM [Reply]

Oh well, I guess my taxes will go up once again!

#5 Anonymous on 09/15/08 at 01:19 PM [Reply]

Somebody's gotta pay for it, it may as well be us.

#6 Anonymous on 09/16/08 at 11:38 AM [Reply]

I wonder if the BOC office needs any help. I need to supplement my income, too.

#7 anonymous on 09/17/08 at 07:50 PM [Reply]

Well I guess someone got a pension!!!

#8 booboo1998 on 09/17/08 at 09:28 PM [Reply]

To you people who say the commissioners will have a tough road to follow because of this with the budget comming up? Your wrong.We the tax payers will have a tough road to follow because of this. You wait and see they will vote to make our taxes go up to cover this. All the commissioners probably got together and had a party with the money.With $80,000 dollars they could have had Steak,Lobster,Beer,and hookers with that much money and no one wants to tell because they were probably all in on it.Yes they may be calling for the investigation because they may have covered it up so well no one will ever find out.
I think we should fire them all and hire some good ol boys with no education to run things? If they ain't got nothing most of the time they won't steal?

#8.1 Anonymous on 09/18/08 at 06:19 PM [Reply]

you should not even comment, you are an idiot

#8.2 Anonymous on 09/18/08 at 08:28 PM [Reply]

One thing you are right about is as taxpayers we have a rough road ahead.
Your response about partying is probably far fetched. Discrepencies go back to 2004, so far.
Your reference to "good ol boys w/ no education" is really insulting to MC citizens. That mentality just perpetuates a false description of MC and its citizens as back woods and ignorant. And, NO! I'M NOT FROM AROUND HERE!!
It doesn't suggestion positive change for the future either.
Yes, change and accountability is way overdue in our county government BUT BE PART OF THE SOLUTION.

#9 Anonymous on 09/18/08 at 12:20 PM [Reply]

I personally know most of the commissioners and I do not believe that one of them would take money from this county. Now, the ones making the deposits, and running the show in the office, well that is a different story.
This county had their opportunity to fire most of them in July and the majority of them stayed.
You are correct on one thing though, we the taxpayers are going to get the short end of this stick.

#10 Anonymous on 09/18/08 at 07:14 PM [Reply]

Yeah I agree with you all on one thing.It may not be no one commissioner to blame? It may have been someone higher up in the office and now they are calling for an investigation.Who handles the money that's who you should look at first then who's lifestyle has changed for the better? If it was a couple Thousand I would say yes look at all of them but $80,000 now that's more than just misplacing money.How long has this been going on anyway? You can bet someone low on the totem pole will take the rap for this.

#10.1 Anonymous on 09/19/08 at 04:07 PM [Reply]

Well, it appears that while our commissioners busied themselves on important issues like where an employee could take a bathroom break or sit and eat lunch while out on county business someone was looting the treasury. While they argued about whose job it was to do what and whose salary should be cut, the county coffer was being raided. I just cant tell you all the boost in confidence this stuff gives me in our esteemed county government.

#11 Anonymous on 09/20/08 at 07:28 AM [Reply]

I agree with you about the bathroom breaks and some of the trival decisions being made during this time, but this has been going on for at least 4 years + according to the paper.
Let's not lose site of the fact that sure they could have been keeping better tabs but that's what they have auditors,a county clerk,etc. to ensure that they have the correct data in order to make educated decisions about our county funds.
My question is this? If we are missing 80K then are our county audit's really accurate?
Are they supposed to check and balance all of the funds within the county? Who gives them their information to actually do their audit?
These are some of the questions that should be asked by our commissioners to the office staff and their audit companies.
Should we have a outside firm other than our typical audit firm to do a check and balances without the help from our county staff?
Me, as a taxpayer of this county, would like answers to these questions.
I am not originally from Madison County but my family thinks this is a great place to live. I feel that our county leaders should leave no stone unturned otherwise they too could be perceived as the guilty parties.

#12 Anonymous on 09/20/08 at 12:56 PM [Reply]

Speaking of audits, weren't we behind just a few years ago? Why?
Did they not say that the audit company could not get the information from the county clerk in order to do their job?
Why did the BOC accounting department not give the information up?
All of the sudden they were given the information and the audits are up to date. It makes me wonder if the information given to the audit department was not valid information, otherwise, they too should of caught the discrepancies.
All of this information was in the papers, we need to start putting these pieces together, people.

#12.1 Anonymous on 09/20/08 at 03:13 PM [Reply]

Around the time that the audit co. blew the lid on not receiving needed information in a timely manner, it was revealed that a $500,000 error was made by Morris Fortson, the county financial officer. What about the repimand or no reprimand issued by Chairman Wesley Nash? Yet Morris was allowed to keep his job.
Appleannie, that's who has been "taking care" of taxpayer money. If the GBI keeps digging maybe they can answer the question of invalid information.
If citizens don't start asking questions and expecting answers, things will remain the same. That means, HIGHER TAXES. Accountability and responsibility to the taxpayers is way over due.
Things that make you say, Hmmm.

#13 Anonymous on 09/21/08 at 07:42 PM [Reply]

There have been people within this county to get fired for alot less than 500,000.
What is the deal, why haven't the officials investigated this 500,000 error before now?
Maybe they have and the results were not made available to the public. Needless to say, if your primary duties are the Chief Financial Officer, a half a million dollar mistake should be more than a slap on the wrist.

#14 George on 09/22/08 at 11:15 AM [Reply]

All the commissioners are stealing. We pay them, they don't do their jobs. They are all thieves!

#14.1 George is an idiot on 10/12/08 at 03:11 PM [Reply]

George,

Sir, you are an idiot. They are doing their jobs. If you don't like the way they are doing them, you had a great chance this year to run for the position and do the job yourself.

A backseat commisioner is no good to this county. As you should stop your idiotic ranting. Shut up.

#14.1.1 Anonymous on 10/12/08 at 06:51 PM [Reply]

I have to agree with George. We pay these idiotic clowns and not only do they not fulfill their duties, they don't even know what their duties are. Throw all the bums out and let's have one commissioner. Too many cooks (er, clowns) in the kitchen!

Add Comment

Name
Email
Homepage
In reply to
Comment: E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications.

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.

Enter the string from the spam-prevention image above:
Phone*

What is two plus one?
: Remember Information? Subscribe to this entry
: Submitted comments will be subject to moderation before being displayed.

Community

Madison Community

Roughly $80,000 stolen from BOC office

MadisonJournalTODAY

Roughly $80,000 stolen from BOC office

Recent Stories

Recent Comments

Sister Sites

Archives

Community

Keyword Tags