Vienna Twp. books ready for audit

By Ed Runyan

The fiscal officer at the time the accounting problems occurred said she didn’t have time to do the job correctly.

VIENNA — Problems with incomplete record-keeping kept the Ohio auditor’s office from conducting a two-year audit of the Vienna Township books in 2008, but with help from the state, the books are ready to audit now.

Steve Faulkner, spokesman for Mary Taylor, state auditor, said the state declared the township’s books unauditable last December because of incomplete records.

Earlier this week, however, the state was able to begin the audit process on the township’s finances for 2006 and 2007 that was supposed to occur last year. The state also is auditing the 2008 records to bring the township up to date.

Faulkner said he could not be more specific about what problems were found in the township’s books, and those matters will be mentioned when the current audit report is complete.

Phil Pegg, Vienna Township trustee, said he began to notice problems with the financial information trustees were receiving last year.

“Trustees are not auditors,” Pegg said, but they could see that “things were not quite right.”

The township fiscal officer during most of 2008 was Margie Darbey, who township trustees appointed to the job when the previously elected fiscal officer, Peg DeRubba, resigned over family obligations in 2007, Pegg said.

Darbey was elected to the job in November 2007.

Darbey failed to put deposits into the right accounts, and some companies doing business with the township were not getting paid on time, said Trustee Heidi Brown. Both Brown and Pegg said they don’t believe any money is missing from the township; it’s just not accounted for properly.

The trustees tried to get additional training for Darbey and got help for her from the assistant fiscal officer in Howland Township, Vivian McDowell, but Darbey eventually resigned in November, according to the Trumbull County Board of Elections.

The current fiscal officer, Vicki L. Anzur, took over for Darbey and appears on the ballot this November to fill the final two years left on the fiscal officer’s term.

Brown, who works in business accounting, said she thinks Darbey was too busy to be fiscal officer because of another job she had.

Darbey, when reached by phone Wednesday, said she resigned in October because she didn’t have the time to be the township’s fiscal officer and keep her full-time job.

“It’s hard to do [the fiscal officer job] part time,” she said. Vienna’s fiscal officer makes just under $17,000 per year, Pegg said.

Brown said she hopes the state completes its audit work and releases its report before next month’s election because she feels that could make a difference in how voters view her. She, Pegg and Anzur face opposition in the election.

Pegg said he believes being a township fiscal officer is a difficult job, requiring a person to understand a wide variety of issues — from payroll to health care to budgeting and financial projections.

“That’s a very high-demand job,” Pegg said.

Faulkner said the state auditor’s office Division of Local Government Services helped the township put its books in order from sometime after Jan. 19, 2009, until around Aug. 18, 2009. The state auditor has billed the township $13,042 for 277.5 hours of work it did during that time, Faulkner said.

runyan@vindy.com