Ricketts: Walton County facing a credit card controversy | Opinion

It sure seems like Walton County has had a lot of issues with its credit cards this year.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement has been forwarded an audit report chronicling indiscriminate and possibly illegal spending of thousands of taxpayer dollars by all five members of the Walton County Commission. The controversial audit was conducted by an internal auditor working in the office of Walton County Clerk of Court Alex Alford and was completed in April before being made public on June 30.

Credit card controversy: Walton County Commission responds to controversial audit citing credit card violations

Background: After Dede Hinote's termination, audit shows all Walton commissioners violated credit card policy

FDLE investigation: Audit citing credit card violations by Walton commissioners sent to FDLE for investigation

The audit found more than $40,000 in spending discrepancies among the five elected commissioners, and also noted that board members collectively had failed to turn over another $40,000 in travel vouchers supposedly required for reimbursement. Some of the purchase card transactions, according to the audit report, violated not only the county's policies but, "in certain instances," state law as well.

All five commissioners, as well as interim County Attorney Clay Adkinson, have been harshly critical of the audit report and Alford's office.

We don't know if the accusations in the report are accurate yet, that's for the FDLE to weigh in on, but there certainly seem to be some issues with how the audit was conducted.

Government accounting standards require the entity or individuals being audited to have an opportunity to review discrepancies and provide receipts and other evidence to clear up misperceptions. However, this audit appears to have been done in secret, with commissioners not knowing about it until its findings had been released.

Alford was invited to attend a special meeting of the Walton County Board of County Commissioners on July 12 to discuss the audit, but did not show up. According to Adkinson, Alford had backed out of two one-on-one meetings with individual commissioners to discuss the audit and he also has not returned messages from the Northwest Florida Daily News to discuss the findings.

Alford is an elected official who put out this audit. He needs to break his silence on this and explain why the audit was conducted without any input from the commissioners, otherwise it's hard to argue with Commissioner Danny Glidewell when he said "It's a political hit job on all of us."

To be clear, just because there appears to be valid concerns about how the audit was completed, that doesn't automatically mean its findings should be ignored. I think it's a good thing that FDLE is taking a look at the audit as an impartial third party to determine if any laws were broken.

Although the audit focused squarely on the commissioners, it does appear issues related to spending on a county-issued credit card go much further than them.

During the special commission meeting to address the audit, Adkinson said the county's purchase card expenditure policy needed to be seriously reformed. The current policy appears to be more flexible than a county's credit card policy probably should be, as it "allowed county administration staff to prepare and submit travel reimbursement forms, make hotel reservations and use county commission P-cards that they had on file," Adkinson said.

Adkinson said he had been working with the county auditors and finance department staff to develop a number of changes that will be updating the purchasing policy for employees and elected officials.

"Most of the issues had been identified in the last few months and we'd been working to correct the issues," Adkinson said.

It will be interesting to see what changes the upcoming purchasing policy makes.

Another Walton County credit card mishap earlier this year ultimately resulted in the firing of longtime county employee Dede Hinote, who was deputy county administrator at the time she was fired in March. Hinote, an almost 30-year employee with the county, came under fire by the commissioners after it was determined she had used her county-issued credit card to make personal purchases.

Commissioners initially suspended Hinote's use of a county credit card, but they fired her days later after it was learned that she had not been truthful about the incident during discussions at a previous meeting.

What is going on in Walton County that its leadership can't get its credit cards figured out?

We don't have all the answers on this yet, but I think it's fair to say something hinky is going on in Walton County. Now that the FDLE has been brought in, maybe we can all get a little more clarity on this situation.

Dusty Ricketts is the content coach for the Northwest Florida Daily News. He can be reached at dricketts@nwfdailynews.com.

Join the conversation

Email your letters to the editor to letters@nwfdailynews.com. They must be 275 words or less and be your original opinion. Do not submit forwarded or third-party letters. Letters may be edited for clarity. Include your name, address and phone number for verification. Guest column proposals should be sent to rglenn@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Northwest Florida Daily News: Walton County Commission facing a credit card controversy | Opinion