Franklin County Commissioners respond to audit concerns

Following concerns raised by Franklin County Council Members Brian Patterson regarding an audit of the county health insurance, the Franklin County Commissioners presented their own findings on the matter at their Tuesday meeting.

Commissioners Vice President Tom Linkel said that he felt the information was not true.

"I want to address the information that Mr. Patterson brought up from the council meeting Tuesday night," Linkel said. "That was kind of a shocker to us all. He was trying to use information, I'm going to call it fake news, trying to stir things up I guess."

Linkel said that county attorney Grant Reeves and auditor Karla Bauman looked into the issue, and Bauman read a statement of findings at the meeting:

"Councilmember Brian Patterson asserted at Council's meeting March 29th, that the County in 2020 had overpaid the life and health insurance by $60,000 and that a mistake like this over a 20-year period equates to $1.2 Million," The statement read. "He further asserted that we had paid insurance on a deceased employee and numerous past employees from years ago. This did not happen.

In spite of one prior thorough review, an additional complete review of the invoices for MedBen in 2020 was done on March 31st and it was found that there were four employee premiums during the Covid-19 pandemic that may have been overpaid for a short period in the total sum of $1,743.

Mr. Patterson claims to have received his information for this allegation from an employee. However, the information he received from the employee was not correct. His error could have been realized with even a brief follow-up with the appropriate officeholders. At the Council meeting, Mr. Patterson stated that he had been aware of this alleged discrepancy for overpayments for four months. Mr. Patterson, however, did not raise the matter until a public pronouncement on March 29th, one week prior to the start of early voting in the County. The County is aggressively trying to get in front of this matter to avoid the continuing spread of misinformation and to avoid additional needless time and expense combating these accusations."

Bauman said she believes there is a one or two month delay in removing an employee from the payroll for the reasoning behind that total.

"Overall the commissioners employee did an excellent job in the administering of the county's health insurance in 2020 considering she was a new employee and she had to also deal with the COVID-19 pandemic," Bauman said.

Bauman said she believes confusion on an invoice that was never paid was the reason behind it appearing as though a deceased employee had seen their health insurance paid,

Linkel said that there was a mutual understanding between the county and insurance company MedBen that communication during the pandemic was not ideal, and said that despite it being past the contractual timeframe to recoup funds they would be trying to recoup the $1,700.

"I think it's worth asking for," Linkel said. "Why not ask for it, we might get it back."

Reeves said this had all been addressed in 2020, and that a review of records found this information with no changes being made.

Reeves said that the figure of $1.2 million being presented at the previous meeting could alarm the state board and trigger an audit which would be costly towards the county, and due to that said it would likely be necessary to preemptively contact the state board about the issue.

Patterson also asserted that the county had paid for insurance for vehicles they don't have, and Linkel said that was common as the county was on fleet insurance and if they lose a vehicle it is replaced.

Linkel said he thought the situation was unfortunate.

"Very misleading, what he brought about, that's all I can say" Linkel said. "It was unfortunate that it was brought up that way. I've known the other six council members for years, I trust them 100 percent. I don't know what else to say. It's not their fault what Brian done."

The News-Examiner has reached out to Patterson for a response to the county commissioner's and auditor's statement, but has not received an answer as of run time Thursday evening.