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WV FORESTRY DIVISION CAN'T ACCOUNT FOR $12.5 MILLION |
| (10/09/2007) |
| West Virginia's Division of Forestry was unable to document a total $12.5 million during a recent fiscal year. The Hur Herald, over the years, has had problems with the agency obtaining public information. Following an FOIA request regarding how many illegal logging operations had been cited, the agency reported only a couple out of hundreds of operations for the entire district. Now, the agency's missing money was one of several glaring problems found by legislative auditors in a review. There was a lack of records to justify $2.5 million paid to employees, and of paperwork to reflect whether the division collected such revenues as timber and logging license fees. Agency Director Randy Dye vowed to address the various shortcomings. Lawmakers, however, meeting in their monthly interim session, demanded more answers. "We have a very disorganized agency here. We have a lot of work that needs to be done here," Sen. Ed Bowman, D-Hancock. The audit found no records to support $4.9 million in receipts and $7.5 million worth of spending from the budget year that ended in June 2003. The $2.5 million in personnel services, meanwhile, was paid out during the following fiscal year but the division failed to keep the relevant time sheets, the audit said, according to a news report. Auditors similarly were unable to find records for the license fees as well as for penalties from civil violations, reimbursements from fire suppression work and other revenues the division is supposed to collect. Those records were completely absent for the 2004 and 2005 fiscal years. "Without supporting documentation, we are unable to determine if the above transactions were made in accordance with the laws, rules and regulations that govern them," the audit said. Dye blamed the problems on high turnover among the agency's accountants which led to the poor record keeping. Lawmakers plan to recall Dye during their January interim session.
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