Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
BURKET – At the end of Thursday night’s meeting, Lena Ball presented the Burket Town Council a letter of resignation as a councilwoman, effective June 30.
Ball did not give a reason for her resignation.
Council President Bill Rayburn said he’d accept the resignation letter, but wished she wouldn’t resign.
“I thank you for all your help, your service and apologize for all the aggravation that might come along with the job,” Rayburn said.
Ball said she wished everyone well.
Earlier in the meeting, the council discussed what procedures they could put in place for the town’s monthly accounts payable vouchers.
Earlier this year, the Indiana State Board of Accounts released an audit report for Burket. The report cited issues with not filing certain documents on time to the state, issues with bookkeeping and personal expenses being made on the town’s credit card.
In what he called a brainstorm session in regards to meeting to put procedures in place, Rayburn suggested the council should review the town’s bank statements and the spreadsheet for the monthly accounts payable vouchers every month.
He said the council could verify things like the beginning and ending balance of the checkbook and the bank statement and possibly the amount of electronic payments. He said in the past year or so, there have been expenditures coming out of the account that didn’t get put on the ledgers. If the council checks the statement and the vouchers ledger, they could possibly spot things and ask questions on why things were missing, whether something hasn’t come in yet or there’s another issue.
Councilwoman Debra Deniston asked about the statement for the town’s credit card. Rayburn said there is no statement just for the credit card, there is a statement for the town’s bank account.
“It’s on the same ledger. It’s on the same account,” he said. What the council hasn’t been looking at in the past is the town bank account statement and comparing it to the voucher ledger. With the voucher spreadsheet, there would be a receipt attached to an expenditure if it was a credit card expense.
Ball asked about the usage of the town’s credit card. Rayburn said Clerk-Treasurer Katina Webb uses the card to pay for most things.
Ball asked why Webb couldn’t bring the town laptop to meetings so the council could see everything on there. Rayburn said he didn’t know if he necessarily wanted to pass the laptop around. He said there are paper statements that lays out how much is in each fund and that is submitted every month to Gateway. Ball said that’s fine, but Webb needs to have that available every meeting.
Rayburn also suggested the town identify when things are due as the town could potentially pay fines when documentation isn’t submitted on time to the state, such as reporting the income taxes the town received.
Rayburn said he could contact town attorney Austin Rovenstine to help in getting procedures written.
In other business, the council:
• Approved a quote from Super Seal Inc. for $5,670 to do 9,000 linear feet in road crack seal.
• Heard from Street Superintendent Brad Bibler that Kip Shuter, director of the Kosciusko County Emergency Management Agency, emailed him contact information for a representative of NIPSCO for the town to contact about broken utility poles in town.
Bibler is still waiting on a response from Frontier about whether or not they’ve done anything with Frontier utility poles that have issues around town.
• Heard about yards that have issues with high grass.
