Background checks start for county

EL DORADO — Several areas in Arkansas have seen cases of embezzlement in the past few years, prompting Mike Loftin, county judge for Union County, to question whether he was doing enough to protect local residents.

Loftin said the reason the Quorum Court passed a new ordinance requiring background checks for all county employees was to ensure the county is following correct standards. On Sept. 21, Ordinance 1457 was passed at the recommendation of attorneys Burt Newell and Gary Burbank, who suggested it as a starting point to ensure the county is protected if something does happen.

In Farmington, the FBI and the IRS are currently investigating $1.5 million missing from accounts in the city. The money is missing from court fines, costs and fees and city general fund revenue that wasn’t deposited between 2009 and 2016.

And in Yell County, the former director of the county Emergency Medical Services and his wife were charged with embezzling over $600,000 in 2016 after an audit.

Christy Smith, communications director for the Association of Arkansas Counties, said each county sets its own employment policies and the association has never advised counties on the issue, noting “that really hasn’t come up.”

The News-Times reached out to five other Arkansas counties that have similar population sizes to Union County, which has a population of 39,887, according to the latest figures available from the U.S. Census Bureau, to find out if background checks are part of the hiring process.

Boone County, with a population of 37,304, and Mississippi County, with a population of 42,835, did not provide the information requested.

Of the other three — Miller County, with a population of 43,787; Baxter County, which has a population of 41,062; and Independence County, which has a population of 37,186 — only one did not already require background checks for county employees.

Baxter County reported having additional guidelines for the county tax collector’s office because of the amount of money the office deals with each year.

But in Independence County, County Judge Robert Griffin said his office does not perform background checks on the employees who work in the courthouse, adding, “Normally they know the people they’re hiring.”

Loftin said he disagrees with this process and believes somebody else needs to be involved in looking at the background checks. He has said he plans on putting together a committee to look over the results of the background checks with each department official.

The implementation of background checks in Union County has caused some internal issues at the courthouse, with Union County Tax Collector Paula Beard saying the ordinance was meant to target and oust one of her employees.