Lawmakers question officials over theft

Committee reviews Benton County audit; $1.1 million embezzled from travel fund

BENTONVILLE — State lawmakers quizzed Benton County officials Friday about $1.1 million embezzled from a county travel fund.

County Judge Barry Moehring, Treasurer Deanna Ratcliffe and Brenda Guenther, comptroller, were in Little Rock to appear before the Legislative Joint Auditing Committee. The committee was reviewing the county’s 2015 audit, where the thefts were reported after being uncovered by FBI and Internal Revenue Service investigators.

Moehring said legislators wanted to know how the theft occurred and whether the money can be recovered and what the county will do to prevent theft.

“It was actually pretty brief,” Moehring said. “I would say it lasted from 20 to 25 minutes. They did a PowerPoint presentation then we were asked if we wanted to respond.”

According to the state audit report, Connie Guild, former county senior accounting specialist, was the custodian of the travel fund from which the money was taken from 2007 to 2016. The report also indicated Guild “appears to have charged $30,037 in credit card purchases without an apparent business purpose during the period Oct. 7, 2015, through Sept. 5, 2016.”

Guild was fired Sept. 7, 2016, according to the audit. She started to work for the county in 2000.

Guild, 52, of Gravette, pleaded guilty in federal court in April and agreed to repay or forfeit assets amounting to $1,033,762, according to her plea agreement. Guild is free on $5,000 bond until her sentencing, which county officials say should be in late July or early August. She faces up to 10 years in prison and fines of up to $250,000 on the theft conviction and up to three years in prison and fines of up to $100,000 on a false tax return conviction.

Moehring and Guenther said they detailed the county’s responses to the theft, which include new accounting procedures with greater accountability and additional checks and reviews. The county has hired an outside firm to do a detailed risk assessment of all of the county’s financial controls.

“We’re proceeding with all of the internal controls we’ve put into place,” Guenther said. “We’re going to make those as strong as we can.”

State Sen. Cecile Bledsoe of Rogers is on the committee and participated in the hearing. Bledsoe said the committee regularly holds hearings to review questions raised by state auditors regarding state agencies, school districts, counties and other entities audited by the state.

“On Joint Audit we have many different issues that we look at,” Bledsoe said. “Today, there was a little bit more interest than usual because the amount was so large. I thought the team from Benton County did a

professional job explaining what had happened and what safeguards they had put into place to prevent it from happening again.”

Bledsoe said the legislators were particularly interested in the prospects of recovering any of the stolen money.

“There were questions about the restitution,” she said. “That’s taxpayers’ money.”

Guenther said the county has insurance that could pay up to $300,000 to offset the loss. She said the county hasn’t been briefed on what, if anything, may be returned as restitution.

Joel Jones, justice of the peace for District 7 and a member of the county’s Finance Committee, said the Quorum Court should take a greater interest in financial controls in the future.

“I think we need to know what the safeguards are so we know what happened and how it’s not going to happen again,” Jones said. “It’s impossible to say it’s never going to happen but we need to take a look at what we’re seeing going forward. It’s very hard to do because we don’t look at every transaction. But at some point there should have been a red flag, something that says we’re spending money that shouldn’t be spent.

“We need to see if there’s a way for it to be in the reports we get. If it’s not, we need to make sure we do get the kind of report that would indicate an issue in the future.”