PIKEVILLE, KY – Pike County District Six Magistrate Chris Harris has concerns about how the Mountain Water District is managed and wants the Fiscal Court to look into the matter.

The Fiscal Court has voted to approve the pass-thru of millions of coal severance tax dollars allocated by the Kentucky Legisla-ture to Mountain Water District, for the construction and improvement of water lines, waste water lines, water plants and waste water treatment plants to serve over 17,000 customers.

“I have been concerned for some time about the financial stability of Mountain Water District (MWD),” Harris said. “I have attended some of their meetings, and I have seen some red flags. I feel it is incumbent upon the Fiscal Court to be sure taxpayer dollars are being used correctly.”

Harris presented a resolution to the court asking for approval of an audit of MWD by a state auditor.

Rhonda James, finance officer for the Fiscal Court, serves as chairwoman of the MWD board of commissioners. She told the Fiscal Court MWD had been audited, and had received positive feedback.

“We [MWD] recently had an audit by the Public Service Commission,” James said. “They gave us a glowing report. An independent auditor inspected our practices as well as our facilities, and we have been under periodic review by the PSC.”

Those reviews are done without prior notice, James said, and are very intensive.

She said Magistrate Harris had been to two meeting in the past months, and that MWD has improved their situation since then.

“I understand your concern,” James said. “But, we are on the right track. We have had a positive cash flow for the past four or five months. Let us show you where we are.”

Harris told James that while the information she gave the court was encouraging, he still had issues he felt needed to be addressed. James responded she had no problem with that.

“As a board, we are an open book,” she said. “We welcome an audit. We want to know if there are problems.”

Harris said if there were in fact no problems the audit would show that, and if there were, the audit would be a starting point in addressing those problems.

The question of which body would pay for an audit was brought up by James.

“I cannot speak for the board,” she said. “I can’t agree that we would pay for an additional audit.”

Harris suggested that, if the MWD board would not pay then the Fiscal Court should.

Harris read the resolution to the court, and prepared to send a motion to the floor for a vote. However, Judge Executive Wayne T. Rutherford had a sticking point with a reference mentioned in the resolution.

The resolution stated “there have been a number of alarming media reports outlining a series of highly questionable actions by the Mountain Water District Board of Directors including some made against the advice of its own attorney, accountant and several members of this Fiscal Court, which have collectively caused the public as well as the members of this Fiscal Court great concern.” Judge Rutherford made a motion the references to the media be removed from the resolution, saying he thought it gave the appearance that the audit had political motives.

Rutherford’s motion to remove the media references passed. Then the resolution then passed. The resolution calls for the order to be passed immediately upon approval, but an audit has not yet been scheduled.