County gets good fiscal audit
By Frank Bradley Sentinel writer

A good financial audit report, a request for a resolution in support of a firing range, an up date on Smoky Mountain Mental Health and a report on the NC cooperative extension program were among the topics raised at last week's regular county commissioner meeting.

The county's audit for Fiscal Year 07-08 had no major findings of discrepancies and only one minor one, namely citing the lack of segregation of duties of some offices. County manager Paul Leek pointed out that this is common with offices with few employees, where some are required to do more than one job.

The audit report showed that Clay County received a triple A rating by both Moody and Standard and Poors, and that it is one of the few counties in the country to be rated so highly.

The board of commissioners agreed to have Sandy Dobson, a CPA from Murphy to do the audit again next year at the same cost of $23,000.

This will be her fifth year doing the county's audit. Kenneth McKaskill gave an annual report on the doings of the NC cooperative service saying the three principal goals for the service is the protection of natural resources, workforce development and to help create healthy families. He said the report would be posted on the county office's website in the near future. He pointed out some of the highlights of what the extension service has done, including going over and doing things at the schools.

Commissioner Herbert Cheeks thanked him for all he has done and urged him to "keep up the good work."

In a report by Shelley Lackey representing Smoky Mountain Mental Health, she said that the regional director, Mike Mosely, had resigned with short notice and that things were somewhat in turmoil; however, she said there was some good news subject to a caveat. Citing the long length of time it takes them to get folks with mental problems into the hospital at Morganton, NC, she said that SMMH had proposed a pilot to allow the admission to alternative locations and that it had been approved for two places. One was in Avery County Memorial Hospital and the other Haywood County Hospital, which has a 16-bed ward for some mental patients who are not criminal, nor extremely violent.

She pointed out however that Haywood has been cited for some violations regarding the prescribing of medications and that it is currently being denied Medicaid and Medicare coverage. She said she believed the hospital would be able to resolve some of the problems in time for the scheduled opening of the ward on 1 July.

The other thing she said was that patients from Clay and Cherokee counties could be evaluated at Murphy Medical Center and wouldn't have to go to Balsam for evaluation. She said this is the first time SMMH is being given the money to pay for that care where in the past it went to Broughton.

Cheeks pointed out that it would save the county money by not tying up deputies for days taking them to Broughton and back along with the high cost of transportation.

In other matters, the county manager announced that the new Department of Transportation building was on target and expected to be ready for occupancy by July 1.

Also, the Board of Elections were set to move into the old Register of Deeds office on the square in Hayesville. That move was accomplished on Monday of this week.

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