'We've been made whole': City of Berea finds financial discrepancies in former BPD Chief's exit review

Feb. 9—Berea Mayor Bruce Fraley revealed on Tuesday the city had discovered some "discrepancies" regarding missing city property and credit card transactions made by a former employee.

The mayor announced the news towards the end of a Berea City Council meeting. During his mayoral comments, Fraley noted inconsistencies were found during an internal review conducted by the city after the resignation of former Berea Police Chief Eric Scott.

"When an employee leaves city employment, we make sure that all city property is accounted for. After the resignation of our former police chief, Eric Scott, we followed our exit protocol, and some city property needed to be returned, and some credit card purchases needed to be reviewed," the mayor said during the meeting.

However, Fraley told Berea City council members the matter of the financial transactions and missing property had been resolved.

"The city attorney and I met with Eric on two occasions in January, and I am here to report that all city property has been accounted for, and the city was reimbursed for credit card purchases unrelated to city business," Fraley added.

Council member Jerry Little asked two questions after Fraley's announcement: "How did we discover this discrepancy?" and "Did we have controls in place that should have caught this, or have we got controls in place now to make sure...[it doesn't happen again?]"

In his reply, Fraley explained the routine review conducted after Scott's resignation required further investigation. City Administrator Rose Beverly brought the discrepancies to the mayor's attention, and the mayor then informed the city's attorney.

In an interview with The Register, Fraley said, "Anytime you have a person in any business — whether it's city government or private industry — if you'd have some procurement authority, it's a good business practice to go back through and review, especially recent purchases, and if there's anything that kind of flagged your attention, you look a little deeper."

During Tuesday's meeting, the mayor mentioned the city administrator currently reviews all credit card purchases, after the fact, but after this incident, he hoped to implement an inventory control system in the future.

During the meeting, Berea City Council Member Katie Startzman asked the mayor for further details regarding enacting the new procedure.

"Since Rose [the city administrator] will be reviewing those purchases, is that something we need to formalize as a part of our procurement policy?" she asked.

Fraley replied the actual policy has thresholds and limits and he believed it was an undertaking that could be managed by the city administrator.

"The bottom line is that any purchase, whether it's made by me, or whether it's by a department head, or by Robin, or Rose, or whoever, those are subject for review at any time. We emphasize that. I think Rose has done a very good job communicating that and taking immediate action," Fraley said.

In an interview with The Register, Fraley elaborated on that point, saying there weren't that many credit card purchases to comb through anyway and that the task would not be particularly difficult for the city administrator to complete.

"You know, when most of the stuff we do comes in, there's a purchase order, we write a check to the vendor, whoever it is, and we mail the check out. But there are some credit card purchases, but really not a lot," he explained. "Like if I go to a conference, for instance, you know, I would do a credit card there. and with an Amazon account, for instance, you've got to assign a credit card to that."

The Register requested a copy of the new protocols that would be put into place by the City of Berea, but were advised by city officials the newspaper must submit a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to acquire those in writing.

In this particular incident, both Fraley and Scott asserted that the discrepancies found in Scott's exit review were accidental.

Scott told the Register that a few issues sidelined his attempts to return city equipment after he resigned as police chief and took a job at Eastern Kentucky University as the associate vice president for communication and marketing.

Scott said he knew he had items at his home which needed to be returned, but was remodeling his basement at the time, which made it difficult to locate the missing items.

"Prior to leaving (Berea), I was aware I had some items to locate: a broken laptop, a phone, some uniforms/equipment, etc. When I returned from Christmas break, I learned there were more items I needed to return beyond what I thought I had in my possession. So, they were aware of some items, but then came to me about others," Scott said.

He added the items were all related to various duties associated with police work.

Scott said local police do a bit of everything — such as producing videos, taking kids fishing, and dressing like Santa. He added the missing items, which included electronics and police equipment, were all accounted for and returned to the city.

Fraley said a cell phone and cooler had also been missing at the time of the internal review, but also confirmed all the missing items were returned to the city.

In regards to credit card purchases the City of Berea had flagged during the exit review, Scott said he was simply unaware of them prior to the audit.

However, the former police chief said the credit card discrepancies were due to having multiple users on his Amazon account.

"I was unaware of the credit card purchases, as those were accidental on the wrong Amazon account. Those items were reimbursed. Amazon defaults to the last account used, and with multiple people on my Amazon account, there were times that they were unaware they were on the wrong account," Scott said.

Fraley said he wanted to emphasize that "everything was made right" and that the incident did not appear malicious. The mayor cited a $6 purchase amount and Scott's positive record as police chief as evidence of the incident being a mistake.

The Register has requested specific details on what purchases were made by Scott and the missing property through a Freedom of Information Act request that was sent to the city on Feb. 3. Per law, the City of Berea has five days to respond to the Register's request for documents.

Scott said he was satisfied with how the discrepancy was handled by Berea city officials.

"Berea does a good job at monitoring these things. It was just a unique situation of the timing in which I left, the time it took to prepare the new chief, my basement being in shambles and unable to even look for the small things one would forget over the years," he said. "I was in constant contact with Berea about this matter the entire time. I wasn't moving away, I was 10 minutes up the street. The oversights made throughout this process have been teaching points for all involved."

In her council comments, Berea City Council Member Teresa Scenters also said on Tuesday she believed the situation to be "an isolated incident that has been resolved by the city."

Scenters added she independently examined the city's financials after an executive session at a prior city council meeting.

"After our closed session, I took a deep dive into the financials, and (City of Berea Financial Officer) Susan (Meeks) was very helpful, updating me on those. I think that we're okay, that this was a one-time issue, and I'm glad it was resolved," Scenters said.

According to Fraley, he and the city attorney consider the matter settled.

"My goal is to protect the taxpayer assets and make sure that the city's made whole, and I'm 100% comfortable that that has happened. We've been made whole," the mayor.