After more than nine months of requests and letters to both Spalding County Tax Commissioner Sylvia Hollums and Gov. Brian Kemp, county auditors finally have the documentation they need to complete the Fiscal Year 2023 audit.
Board of Commissioners Chair Clay Davis said at a called BOC meeting Thursday evening that Mauldin & Jenkins, the accounting firm hired by Spalding to complete the audit, has received the information needed from the Hollums’ office.
The auditors have just 10 days to complete the audit and get it to the Georgia Department of Community Affairs. If they don’t, or if the DCA doesn’t accept the audit, the county could lose up to $24 million in grants.
The situation began back in September of last year when the county’s director of finance first requested the annual finance report from the Tax Commissioner’s Office in order to begin the annual audit.
Davis said at Monday’s BOC meeting that repeated requests for the information went unanswered.
“Correspondence indicates that between September of 2023 and January 2024, our staff routinely requested financial documents,” he said, “but were unable to obtain the requested information.”
County Manager Steve Ledbetter reported the delays to commissioners in January. In February, county commissioners directed Ledbetter to send a letter to Hollums requesting that she “rectify deficiencies identified in the financial management process of the Tax Commissioner’s Office, and to ensure that all future financial activities are conducted with the utmost transparency and adherence to Georgia law and established protocols.”
The letter requested Hollums work with the auditor to complete the audit no later than March 29, 2024.
When that deadline passed unresolved, the BOC made the Georgia Association of Tax Officials (GATO) aware of the situation. Davis said GATO offered their own assistance to the tax commissioner, and Hollums declined.
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