Morgan, County, State, Erases, $440000, Debt

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Morgan County State erases $440 000 debt commissioners have been operating under the financial dark cloud of the state’s claim that the county owed more than $440,000 for overspending on children’s services back in the 1990s.

But that monetary storm cloud blew away late last week when state officials erased the county’s so-called debt.

State officials concluded that the $440,000 for which they threatened legal collection measures – ranging from garnishments and sheriff’s sales to canceling liquor permits – is not a debt at all, and that the county owes nothing.

In fact, the so-called debt turned out to be an accounting error on the books of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, according to letters from two state agencies, the Ohio JFS and the Attorney General’s office.

“If the state had forced us to pay that, it would have put us in fiscal emergency,” Commissioner Tim VanHorn said Monday. And, even if the state allowed a multi-year repayment plan, he added, “this county wouldn’t have been able to pay it off for years and years.”

Exactly as the commissioners and Vicki Quesinberry, director of the Morgan County Department of Jobs and Family Services, maintained from the start, the $440,000 in question was an old debt of the county’s which a previous director of Ohio JFS had forgiven, but had never taken “off the books.”

Early this year, when Ohio JFS staff saw that old debt, with no indication that it had been forgiven nearly 15 years ago, they had the Attorney General’s office initiate collection proceedings against Morgan County.

Mike Reed, president of the county commission, said taxpayers have several county administrators to thank for getting the county off the hook for more than $440,000 that it didn’t owe, but could have been forced into paying.

“A lot of credit goes to our current and past directors and fiscal officers (of Morgan County JFS) for keeping that letter,” Reed said. He was referring to a letter from Wayne Shoals, former director of the Ohio JFS, who “forgave”  the county’s $400,000 over spending back in the late 1990s.

“That letter was our ‘get out of jail free card,’ so to speak,” Reed said.

If that letter had been lost, Reed said, the county might have wound up in litigation and might have been forced into paying all or at least part of the alleged debt.

“We’re certainly thrilled that it has been corrected and (the alleged debt) dismissed,” Commissioner Dean Cain said.

Reed said Ohio JFS officials, in negotiations with the county over this issue, never pushed hard for collection of the so-called debt, but rather sought ways to resolve the discrepancy in its ledgers.