A financial dispute between two Madera County government agencies took far too long to resolve, a Madera County grand jury report has concluded.
The report, which was made public this week, says that it took more than seven years for the county Treasurer and Tax Collector Department and the county Board of Education to untangle a financial snafu dating back to the 1990s. In the end, the Treasurer Department last year paid the Education Board $91,322.
The grand jury found that "it is unacceptable that unresolved issues between two or more departments of the Madera County government cannot be resolved within a reasonable time. In this particular case, seven-plus years is not a reasonable time."
But Sally Frazier, the superintendent of the county Office of Education, said the disagreement was actually resolved more than two years ago.
"I was kind of perplexed that it was even an issue this year," she said.
Frazier said the county was not aware of the fact that the Treasurer Department owed the Education Board any money until an audit uncovered the discrepancy. She said she doesn't remember when the audit was conducted.
The two county departments went to court to reach an agreement soon after the audit, Frazier said.
According to the grand jury report, the problem began in 1992 when a county employee in charge of reconciling the Education Board's bank accounts retired and no one replaced the employee. When the board changed banks sometime in 1995 or 1996, it discovered that the accounts did not reconcile and it needed additional funds to cover outstanding checks.
The Treasurer Department helped bail out the Education Board, which later repaid the Treasurer Department, Frazier said. The audit discovered that the Education Board had overpaid the Treasurer Department, she said.
Frazier said no one from the grand jury contacted her office this year about its investigation. Calls to the number listed for the grand jury were not returned.
http://www.fresnobee.com/263/story/940533.html
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