City administrator: ‘Sensational news outlets’ wrong about unaccounted-for COVID funds reports
BENNETTSVILLE, S.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — Queen City News tried for more than a week to get someone inside Bennettsville City Hall to explain what’s going on with the city’s budget.
On April 16, city leaders tried to meet privately about some sort of trouble related to the city’s accounting of American Rescue Plan Act tax dollars.
City council voted during the April 16 special called meeting to go behind closed doors to discuss the accounting problem, but Queen City News Chief Investigator Jody Barr objected to the closed-door meeting, citing a ban in the state’s open meetings law prohibiting public bodies from discussing those kinds of matter out of public view.
The city’s attorney agreed, telling the council and the city administrator “City Financial Affairs” isn’t an allowable executive session.
SC city refuses to give details on missing COVID tax dollars
Once back inside the public meeting room, Simon then discussed in the open what he and the council wanted to discuss in private. However, the city administrator never identified the exact account(s) of concern or the specific accounting problem surrounding those funds.
“The purpose of the meeting is there’s some accounting that we need to do regarding some of our funds and some of our accounts that could impact our budget,” Simon told the council during the public session of the April 16 special called meeting. “I will just say we’ve combed through some of our accounts, some of our federal accounts, and we are still in the process of accounting for all of the funds.”
“What we’ve done as step one is to look at all of our expenditures out of said fund, and we’re looking at remaining balances in those things that have not been purchased as a starting point to make sure that we can account for any remaining funds from that pool of money,” Simon told the council.
City administration didn’t reveal a single dollar figure during the meeting. In a discussion following the meeting, Simon confirmed to Jody Barr the tax dollars of concern had to do with pandemic funds, but would not confirm a dollar amount or what exact accounts are in question.
“Mr. Simon. How big is the shortfall? A million? Million, plus, just under a million?” Barr asked Simon as the administrator walked to the closed-door session in the April 16 meeting. Instead of answering, the city administrator avoided the question, “Where’s your cameraman tonight?” Simon asked as he walked out of the council chambers.
The day after the April 16 special called meeting, Queen City News asked Simon for the latest city budget as part of our work to identify the accounting problems. Simon never responded to that email. On April 18, Barr contacted City Attorney Mason King by phone.
In a six-minute call, Barr asked King to help convince Simon and the city to disclose the accounting problems the city wanted to meet privately to discuss on April 16. King said he would contact the city, but no one from city hall responded.
Queen City News published our ‘Behind Closed Doors’ investigation on April 23, one week after the special called meeting about the accounting problem. By the time our reports aired, the city had not responded with any documents or an agreement to sit for an interview to explain to the public the problems in the city’s accounting.
On Thursday afternoon, multiple people contacted Barr after City Administrator William Simon posted a full-page press release to the city and Bennettsville Police Department’s Facebook pages. The release called our reporting of unaccounted-for/missing COVID tax dollars “baseless and misleading.”
Simon’s press release was a complete denial the city was missing any of the $3.8 million federal tax dollars awarded to the city during the pandemic. This is what Simon told the council during the April 16 special called council meeting.
“So we’ve made progress towards accounting for these funds. The reason for the meeting is that we just want to get to the point where we’re at the finish line and there are some remaining funds that we’re looking for, or need to account for. We’re confident that we’re going to be able to do so. But we want to know we want to give you all that information as you consider first reading of the budget today and let you know that we’re going to continue to work after that,” Simon told the council.
Barr attempted to question Simon further following the meeting, but Simon would not give any further detail on the record. Simon did offer to meet “at a later date” to sit for an interview about the unaccounted or missing COVID tax dollars. Our attempts to schedule that interview with Simon in the following days were unsuccessful.
Those attempts included that six-minute call with the city attorney eight days ago.
Barr again asked Simon for an interview on April 25, within hours of the city posting its press release, which the city never sent to QCN. Simon said he was “not aware” of our call with the city attorney, but he would not agree to sit with QCN for an interview.
I’m reluctant to sit down with you for an interview as your previous coverage, in my opinion, unfairly implied guilt of a matter that does not exist. For the record, the existing ARPA funds were received in 2021 & 2022 and received acceptable audits. The method of financial accounting established existed long before I was hired. While I am abreast of the matter, I cannot speak to the actions of the previous administration. During my short time here, I have not made any changes to ARPA accounting procedures.
William Simon, Bennettsville City Administrator
Simon did include the latest city audit, which was a review of the city’s financial activity between April 30, 2022, and April 30, 2023. The audit, in plain language, did not appear to identify any accounting problems that would support the accounting problems Simon vaguely discussed in the April 16 special called council meeting.
The audit did show an “unfavorable variance” of $984,321. The auditor pulled that number when he compared the city’s actual General Fund expenditure of $8,158,880 to a “final” budget of $7,174,559. An unfavorable variance is defined as, “…an accounting term that describes instances where actual costs are greater than the standard or projected costs. An unfavorable variance can alert management that the company’s profit will be less than expected. The sooner an unfavorable variance is detected, the sooner attention can be directed towards fixing any problems,” according to Investopedia, an online financial reporting news website.
Queen City News attempted again to talk to the city’s long-time auditor, Bob Milhous, to learn more about what caused the unfavorable variable and how that would impact a municipality’s budget. Milhous did not return a message left on his office phone last week and a message left again for him Friday morning has not yet been returned.
Queen City News could not find an email address for Milhous, who is based in Columbia, S.C.
The city’s press release shows city hall has no intention to publicly discuss the problems it discovered in its COVID funds for another three months. Simon said he’ll provide a “forthcoming progress report” related to COVID funds and will hold a “public forum” in July 2024.
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