City councils hold funds as county untangles Plains, Thompson Falls library levy payments

Levy funds are stuck in limbo while the county treasurer looks to correct a mistake that has complicated the finances for both Thompson Falls and Plains.

In December 2016, when property rates were sent out, those who paid in full to the county were accidentally paying a duplicate levy.

A resident (who has since passed) approached the County Treasurer Carol Turk about what he thought was a duplicate payment. The payment was for the library levy fund.

“Yes, there was a duplicate of funds sent to residents. Those that paid in full between December and April of this year were refunded the difference,” Turk said.

She went on to say that those who hadn’t paid were refunded on paper and sent an amended invoice so they knew the correct figure to be paid for the levy.

Since then, Plains and Thompson Falls libraries were overpaid when Treasury checks were sent out. The libraries of both towns received more than what was required while the cities themselves were short-changed.

The matter was brought up at the recent Plains town meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 5. Council members discussed the matter briefly but at that stage they stated they were unable to get a sound response to the issue from the treasurer.

Emails between Thompson Falls, Plains and the county treasurers were made available to the reporter of the Valley Press.

Within those emails, there was seen to be confusion from the finance officer as to what and how to return the money in order for the books to balance correctly on the cities’ side. There was also minimal correspondence of specific direction as to what protocols or procedures would need to be put in place in order to rectify the issue.

The thorn within the money bungle is that none of the parties involved have ever been faced with this particular problem.

It was stated over the table during the Plains town meeting that a Journal Voucher had been suggested to use to transfer the mis-sent funds from the library to the city. City treasury stated that this was not a practice that could be used, as it was not a correct way of moving the funds back to the account they should be in.

“Once we knew there was an issue we got straight onto it,” said Turk. “Unfortunately, it cannot be fixed overnight as much as we would like it to be. This has never happened before and because of that I have had to work closely with the vendor software to figure out how to balance it all out.”

Delving further into the issue, Turk explained that a letter was sent to the libraries as well as the libraries of Thompson Falls and Plains already having knowledge of the extra funds.

“At that time of speaking with representative of each library, we couldn’t receive back the funds as we did not know the actual amount,” said Turk.

With only an approximate value known at the initial part of the investigation, Turk was unable to move the funds as she was unfamiliar with the procedure, if one existed.

It has only been as recently as the month of July when the actual dollar amount that was given to the libraries was definitively found.

Turk explained due to the unique nature of what had happened, that it has taken months of research to get to this point.

City councils such as Plains aren’t able to do much as their funds for the city are lower than normal. Until they can receive the funds back to the city from the library, budgets are tight.

Due to the delicate nature of balancing accounting books with the large number of entities for both the cities of Plains and Thompson Falls and also the county, there is now what seems to be the waiting game of when the issue can be rectified.

According to Turk, she is awaiting an appointment from the county auditor to best advise what the next step is for the treasury to be able to then advise Plains and Thompson Falls on what is the best practice to fix the problem. Until such time, taxpayer money that got caught in the levy money bungle is sitting out of reach for city council.