Williams, clerks office debate records and purchases

MOORESVILLE — When Mooresville Town Councilman Shane Williams ran for his current seat, he made a campaign promise to donate his salary back to the town.

In 2020, members of the town council received a salary of $3,000 — which is paid in $750 increments every three months.

Williams wrote two checks, both totaling $750, in May 2020.

Money from those two checks, one dated May 5 and the other dated May 14, were both placed into a non-reverting fund known as “town improvement donation.”

At the start of 2020, that specific fund had $90.15.

According to a “fund account detail report,” which shows the deposits and expenses for the entire year, those two checks are the only two that Williams deposited in the calendar year 2020.

However, Williams donated an additional $750 at Tuesday night’s meeting of the Mooresville Town Council after he got paid in mid-December.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Williams discussed a recent “claim” from Morgan County Libertarian Party Chairman Danny Lundy that he had not made his donations to the town.

Williams pointed to the two TV monitors that hang in the town government center, a laptop to use for presentations during public meetings and a painting as examples of his donations to the town.

While the painting was purchased by Williams and then donated to the town, the TV monitors, laptop and supporting equipment were bought using two credit cards.

The town then used money Williams donated to make payments to the credit cards.

One credit card transaction was at the Camby Walmart on May 7 for $245.18 for items like TV mounts and HDMI cables.

Another two transactions also took place on May 7 at Meijer stores in Camby and Avon for the two TVs for $469.99 each.

On May 8, there was a transaction for Amazon to purchase the laptop for $469.

“One thing I think (Lundy) was right to criticize on was the town wasn’t keeping track of donations very well,” Williams said Tuesday night.

Williams said that information regarding the painting donation was not provided to Lundy.

The price of the painting was $802.50.

During the meeting, Mooresville Deputy Clerk-Treasurer Debbie Monts expressed her feelings that she thought Williams was saying the town’s clerk-treasurer’s office was not properly maintaining records.

“Any donation or check that is made out to the clerk’s office is reconciled against the bank, monthly,” Monts said. “Audited by the state board of accounts. Anything that is not monetary, obviously, there is no way to receipt that in.”

At the meeting, Williams provided the town with a receipt for the painting and his canceled donation checks for public record.

“If somebody wants to see what I’ve donated, they can ask for that file and pull the copy of the receipt,” Williams said.

On Wednesday, Monts said that Lundy’s request was not for specific information on William’s donation.

“What it asked for was the detail expenditures of all the donation funds in the town,” Monts said Wednesday, later adding that the request also wanted to know the balances of those funds.

Monts went on to say that the clerk-treasurer’s office did not know that the painting was part of Williams’ salary donation.

“Even had we had a receipt for the painting, and had the knowledge that he was expecting that to be considered part of his donation, we still would not have provided that information in that particular records request because that was not the information that was requested,” Monts said.

During a conversation on Thursday, Williams acknowledged he did not know exactly what was in the public records request.

“When I said the town hasn’t done a good job, I was talking about all of us,” Williams said Thursday.

Setting an example

During Tuesday’s meeting, Williams said that when he wanted the TV monitors purchased with his donated money, he was asked to set an example when it comes to wants versus needs as it relates to town expenses.

Monts explained Wednesday that she had initially asked Williams to lead by example — conserving money whenever possible — after Williams had requested that a town employee go to the clerk-treasurer’s office to get a credit card and purchase the TV, laptop and supporting equipment.

On Thursday, Williams also said that he had asked a town employee to get a town credit card from the clerk-treasurer’s office to pay for the equipment.

At the time, the town had sent a memo to department heads that there could be financial issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“So they had to be ultra-conservative until we found out how this was going to affect us,” Monts said Wednesday.

Williams also noted that the town had requested that department heads watch spending due to potential financial strains.

“We had told department heads to be frugal,” Williams said.

Williams said that there was a disagreement with the idea of whether or not the town needed the TV monitors.

According to Monts, the town employee came to the office ask for the credit card to purchase the equipment, which would then be paid back out of the donation fund.

At the time, though, Monts said that Williams had not donated any money to the town, leaving it with the same amount of money it began the year.

“So, I didn’t want to give up the credit card without being told how they plan to pay for it,” Monts said.

She then said that she told Williams to “lead by example” because department heads had been told not to spend money unnecessarily.

“But, he wanted to spend money without there being any money in the fund,” Monts said.

After Williams’ two donations in May, there was $1,590.15 in the “town improvement donation” fund.

Two payments were then made to “Card Service Center” for $478.81 and $1,185.16 for the credit cards, which brought the fund balance to $-73.82.

On Dec. 3, there was another payment out of the fund to an individual listed as Brett Durham for $500.

The next day, Mooresville Towing donated $500 to the fund, which brought the balance back to $-73.82.

On Dec. 30, the Libertarian Party of Morgan County donated $73.82 — bringing the fund balance to $0 by the end of 2020.

~ By Staff Report | Published January 8, 2021 in The Mooresville Times