THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, September 7, 1994 TAG: 9409070474
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN JOLLY DAVIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ACCOMAC LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines
A watchdog group said Tuesday that Accomack County's nine supervisors have used money from a $252,505 fund to dispense - without a vote - gifts to favorite organizations, businesses, individuals and charitable groups.
One supervisor bought a personal computer, one paid his own campaign expenses and at least one donated tax money to another politician, the Accomack County Taxpayers Association said in a report released Tuesday.
And there were dozens of contributions to churches - a forbidden use of tax dollars under state law. Yet no board member knew what the others were spending.
Now the State Police have been ordered by the Virginia attorney general's office to begin an investigation, according to County Administrator Arthur Fisher. And the taxpayers' association says the money was nothing but a ``slush fund arbitrarily dispensed'' by each supervisor.
The board will hold a special meeting at 3:30 p.m. today to determine whether discretionary spending should be eliminated.
No questions were asked when the money was spent, supervisors said in interviews, and there were no rules about how the money should be used.
``I didn't know what anyone else was doing until it was printed in the paper. And I don't think they knew what I was doing, either,'' Supervisor Paul Merritt said. ``Nobody paid much attention to it because there were no rules on it.''
In April 1993, the county board voted to route money usually budgeted for drainage projects into the discretionary fund kitty. Suddenly, the supervisors had 10 times as much money as before to spend without board approval, the taxpayers group reported.
The taxpayers' group was denied information about spending from the fund, so it filed a Freedom of Information request for vouchers and a computer listing of payments from the fund.
The county came through with 204 vouchers totaling $110,224 for the first 11 months of fiscal 1994. This left $142,280, of which $37,484 was used for drainage projects.
However, the group said, the vouchers showed:
Grants or donations to the towns of Chincoteague, Tangier, Painter, Belle Haven and Hallwood totaled $33,913.
Gifts to individuals totaled $14,778. Of this, $13,896 was spent by Supervisor C.D. Fleming for wells, home repairs and gas bills on properties owned by three individuals.
Supervisor Merritt used $17,450 to repair town roads in Chincoteague, where he lives.
Merritt spend $1,409 on a personal computer he is using to enter information about his role in county government. He said he would give the computer to his successor.
Supervisor Greg Duncan paid $589 in campaign expenses.
One supervisor gave $25 to Rep. Herbert Bateman's congressional campaign.
Dozens of churches in the county were recipients of tax-money gifts, the computer listings showed.
Jim Williams, a retired engineer who lives in Onancock, said the taxpayers association was formed about two years ago to study Accomack's budgets.
According to the watchdog group's report, Merritt led the spending with $29,657.
``These funds appear to (be) a slush fund arbitrarily dispensed at the individual largesse of supervisors,'' said the report. ``At the minimum, the appreciation for this largesse is bound to gain political favor for the dispenser.''
The association recommended that discretionary spending be eliminated and that all spending requests be channeled through existing county programs, agencies and departments. ILLUSTRATION: Map
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