Aiken County recently provided information from its investigation into questionable fire fee spending in Wagener to the S.C. Department of Revenue.
County Attorney Brad Farrar wrote in a text message March 22 that he had sent the results of a report prepared by Mauldin & Jenkins LLC specifically to Department of Revenue directory Hartley Powell and the agency’s “general counsel.”
Mauldin & Jenkins, an accounting firm, found “tremendous holes” in Wagener and its fire department’s documentation of how fire fees were used, according to Aiken County Council Chairman Gary Bunker.
County Council’s Audit Committee heard a presentation about Mauldin & Jenkins’ report and discussed the information in it during a meeting March 5.
Immediately afterward, the county issued a statement that it would be providing copies of the report to the Town of Wagener and its fire department.
In addition, the county stated it would ask the Town of Wagener and its fire department to “shed whatever light they may be able to on the fields denoted as missing documentation or supporting data.”
County Administrator Brian Sanders said emails were sent to the appropriate parties March 6 and they were given 10 days to respond.
No communications were received from the recipients before the deadline.
County Council’s Judicial and Public Safety Committee then discussed the matter during a March 19 meeting.
All members of the committee — Danny Feagin, Sandy Haskell and Phil Napier — were present. The other attendees included Audit Committee Chairman Kelley Mobley, Bunker, Farrar and Sanders.
Farrar recommended providing the results of the report to the Department of Revenue because “we have questions” and “I think we could benefit from their expertise,” and the Judicial and Public Safety Committee agreed.
Farrar told the Aiken Standard that the county, the Town of Wagener and the Wagener Fire Department commissioned the report.
He said it was “an agreed upon procedure,” not “a full-blown audit.”
Last October, County Council unanimously approved a resolution that gave the county more control over how fire fees are spent in Wagener.
As a result, a third-party administrator is determining if submitted expenses are appropriate before County Treasurer Jason Goings’ office releases the fees to the town.
The various volunteer fire departments in the county and Wagener’s fire department assess fire fees in their districts and the county collects the fees on their behalf.
The county “has a fiduciary as well as a contractual obligation to the fire fee payers of Aiken County to ensure that all collected fees are used only for the provision of fire protection services,” the resolution stated.
Included last year in the county’s new contracts with individual fire departments was a specific provision “that allows for a third party administrator” when a fire department asks for one or when the county wants “to make sure the fees are being used for exactly what they are supposed to be used for,” Farrar told the Aiken Standard.
The use of a third party administrator for Wagener fire fees will continue “until there is confidence that the town has the controls to handle them” on its own, said Bunker early this month.
He added that Mauldin & Jenkins’ report “basically highlights all the concerns Council has had.”
In 2020, disagreements between Wagener officials and Wagener Fire Department leaders led to the suspensions and subsequent dismissals of Fire Chief Mark Redd and Assistant Chief George Day.
There were allegations from people involved in the controversies that fire fees had been misappropriated.
In February 2021, County Council unanimously approved a resolution that directed Clay Killian, who then was the county’s administrator, and his staff to request records and other information from Wagener and its fire department.
Two months later, Killian recommended to County Council’s Judicial and Public Safety Committee that an accounting firm be hired so that its representatives could “go and sit down” with town and fire department representatives in Wagener “to go through their records.”
Killian told the committee that neither the county nor Wagener had the staff needed to complete the task without some guidance.
The committee then authorized Killian to hire an accounting firm.
At first, Elliott Davis was supposed to do the work. Then Mauldin & Jenkins was hired. There were various reasons for the delay in getting the work done, including a decision by Elliott Davis last year that it no longer would be doing government-related audits.
The Aiken Standard in the spring 2021 published a story that focused on the use of fire fees in Wagener after examining the records of the town and its fire department obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. A reporter also visited Wagener’s town hall and viewed other documents.
The records showed questionable spending practices by the fire department and the transfer by the town of fees collected specifically for the operation of the fire department to other bank accounts without explanation.
There also were other gaps in the information documented.
