Library pressed to disclose spending

Editor’s note: This is part one of a two-part series.

With less than two months left to fulfill her duties as the Pine Bluff/ Jefferson County Library System director, Bobbie Morgan has a tall order to fill as new board members are requesting expenditure reports for all accounts associated with the library as well as employee salaries for 2020.

Library board member Glenda Daniels said during Tuesday’s almost three-hour-long meeting that she feels that, because of the lack of oversight during previous years, Morgan has been able to spend money without any accountability. Now with a new chairman and board in tow, members are wanting to know where the money has been going.

Morgan, who has been the director for three years, has overseen the construction of the new flagship library in Pine Bluff and renovations of the other satellite libraries in Jefferson County, all paid for with a millage increase, at a cost of more than $13 million.

During the financial report segment of the meeting, Daniels presented the board with documents showing the millage money that the county received from 2017-2021 with the balance in the account per year.

Each year the balance has increased. In 2018 the balance was $909,542; in 2019: $1,143,753; in 2020: $1,173,111; and in 2021: $1,293,856.

“I brought this information here because in the past, I don’t know who is in charge of this account as far as requesting monies, but there are no statements, no ledgers, or no paperwork,” said Daniels.

Daniels said she has requested statements from Morgan with itemized accounts several times but to no avail.

“There is bond money we have been requesting information on. We are still in need of this information,” said Daniels, who also said she requested the breakdown of the construction budget, which she also doesn’t have or know what that amount is.

“We need statements from every financial account that the library has,” said Daniels. “We need receipts and anything connected to those accounts to show money, deposits, credited and debited to

those accounts.”

Daniels also presented the board with an Appropriation Request letter from October 29, 2019, from Morgan to County Judge Gerald Robinson, asking for a one-time increase of $339,514 in the annual appropriation from their millage funds for 2020. The money was later denied, officials said.

In the letter, Morgan said the money was needed to cover an increase in expenses, as well as a potential lawsuit the library is currently contesting.

In her one-time increase request, Morgan included $80,000 for what was described as a potential lawsuit settlement, and according to Daniels, Morgan provided no other supporting documents except for what appeared to be a “prayer relief” page from a plaintiff requesting the court to award her $80,000. It was unclear what the legal matter entails.

“What is this for? Is there a lawsuit we are unaware of? What are the specifics of this? Why were you requesting this $80,000 and when you requested this money from this millage, where is the documentation,” asked Daniels.

Morgan said she doesn’t recall what it was for because the documents didn’t identify where it came from. She did say that she was familiar with the letter that she wrote to the judge asking for the extra appropriation of funds and that she could have provided an itemized list had she known this would have been brought up in the meeting.

“I would have been happy to go back and pull out copies so I would know what I actually sent instead of a compilation of documents that don’t seem to go together,” said Morgan.

Morgan is set to resign in early April and said that if her remaining time needs to be spent going back and retrieving documents, then she would do what she could.

“The construction budget, the bond money, none of that is listed on the reports we get and that is normal things that we should know,” Daniels told the Pine Bluff Commercial after the meeting. Daniels said she feels there is not a genuine effort in wanting to provide the information being sought.

“We shouldn’t have to search and ask five or six times where is this information at,” Daniels said.