Town of Richwood on the brink of not having access to state funds

RICHWOOD, La. (KNOE) - The Town of Richwood is coming up on its second time in a row of not reporting the required annual audit to the State of Louisiana.

The town did not meet the state’s deadline on Dec. 31, 2022, according to the Louisiana Legislative Auditor.

Mayor Gerald Brown said the Dec. 21, 2023, regular meeting failed to have enough aldermen in attendance to vote on an auditor. Brown stated Janice Fleming and Simeon Profit were the only two aldermen present out of the five who sit on the board.

They had to discontinue the December meeting, and a regular auditor was not approved.

Two aldermen, Wysinger Cleveland and Wilbert Reed, Jr., said the last couple of audits consisted of uncleared checks worth nearly $150,000.

“Those checks - we had a different physical officer that what we have today; part of the way she did things - several of our checks, they go out there in drafts,” said Brown. “So it’s not really a physical check being mailed to company. It’s coming out via draft, but what she would do is she would create a physical check as a paper copy for her. She’d hold on to that until she cleared all of those checks.”

But Mayor Brown said the previous bookkeeper fell ill and passed away, so those checks were never voided. He also said they weren’t real checks. The aldermen told KNOE reporter Kenya Ross that a forensic auditor was approved by the board back in the fall of 2023, and the discussion about the forensic auditor was not placed on the Dec. 2023 regular meeting agenda.

Brown has responded to the aldermen’s request to use a forensic auditor by showing KNOE emails requesting bank statements from Chase Bank and sending them to the forensic auditor. As of Dec. 27, 2023, the bank had not provided copies of the bank statements, which is what the forensic auditor needs to move forward with the examination.

Even if a meeting is called before the New Year to approve an auditor, the mayor said the audit itself can take several weeks. This means there’s no way Richwood will be able to turn it in by the end of the year to meet the state’s deadline.

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