NO DECISION on charges over payments to trauma training group.

Despite what a state auditor told lawmakers on Thursday, Pulaski County Prosecuting Attorney Larry Jegley said he has not made a final decision on whether to file charges in connection with payments from the state to an organization that provided training for health care workers.

Arkansas Legislative Audit found last year that the Health Department overpaid the Arkansas Trauma Education and Research Foundation $655,886 from February 2012 to June 2015 to provide training for health care workers.

In a phone interview Thursday evening, Jegley said he spoke with a state auditor earlier in the day about the audit and the results of an Arkansas State Police investigation that Jegley requested after receiving the audit last year.

“I didn’t tell her we’d made any final decision or anything else,” Jegley said. “I just wanted to make sure that I wasn’t missing anything.”

He said he would likely make a final decision in the next two weeks.

On Thursday afternoon, Deputy Legislative Auditor Jon Moore gave the Legislative Joint Auditing Committee’s Standing Committee on State Agencies a different account of Jegley’s communication with Arkansas Legislative Audit.

“He told us that he did not find any criminal intent,” Moore told the committee.

The audit found that the Health Department reimbursed the foundation for the estimated cost of training conferences, but the foundation did not reimburse the state when the actual cost fell below the estimated amount.

The audit also found that the foundation sold a life-size training dummy for $45,000 that it had bought with funds from the department, even though it should have been considered department property.

Mike Sutherland, former chairman of the foundation board, told the audit that the foundation’s contract with the department “clearly in hindsight” called for the foundation to get the Health Department’s approval before selling the dummy.

“This was a misunderstanding on our part,” Sutherland said Thursday.

At the request of Rep. Mary Bentley, R-Perryville, the committee voted to discuss the audit again after reviewing Jegley’s correspondence with auditors and a report by the Arkansas State Police.

“It’s just tragic to me, on the part of Arkansas taxpayers, that that much money’s been disappeared and nothing’s going to take place on that,” Bentley said.

The foundation bought the dummy, which simulates a patient’s vital signs and responses to treatment, for $74,350 in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2012, according to the audit.

The dummy had been a required piece of equipment for a training course, Sutherland said.

“As the course evolved, and the requirements changed for that course, it no longer became necessary” to use the dummy, he said.

At about 5 feet, 8 inches tall and 90 pounds, the model is “fairly cumbersome to move around.”

“Most places around the country stopped using it long before the requirement ended,” Sutherland said.

The foundation sold the dummy to a university in Texas. The proceeds were spent putting on other courses in Arkansas, Sutherland said.

The foundation ceased operations last year.