by Jon Styf
The former director of a county communications district misappropriated more than $1 million in funds over nearly 10 years according to a new investigative report from the Tennessee Comptroller’s Office.
Kelly Taylor is accused of sending 305 false invoices, forging the signatures of board members, and forging signature endorsements of vendors to cash checks in her role with the Meigs County Communication District. She was 45 when she died Feb. 21, 2021. No criminal charges will be pursued.
In all, the comptroller’s office found the former director misappropriated $1,084,188.60 from the district with false invoices to both real and fictitious vendors.
The communications district does not directly levy taxes; rather, it is funded by a 911 surcharge collected by communications service providers and then distributed to communications districts. An option to pursue civil action against the “estate or personal representative of the former director for recovery of misappropriated or converted funds” is available to the district, the report says.
The report found that the communications district board did not give proper oversight of the financial operations of the district nor did it separate the financial responsibilities of the district.
“The Meigs County Commission was not aware of the findings from the Tennessee State Comptroller’s Office regarding the 911 Communications District director misappropriating funds,” said Meigs County Mayor Edgar A. Jewell Jr. “The Emergency Communications Board has complete oversight of the 911 Director and funds coming IN and OUT of the districts accounts.
“Corrective measures have been put in place to prevent this from happening again. These measures include but are not limited to; Two person signatures on all outgoing checks and segregation of duties and mentioned in the comptrollers report.”
The report stated that those processes were not in place previously.
“The board failed to adequately review the bank statements and related checks of the district,” the report said. “Four board members are listed as signatories on the district’s checking account. Therefore, it is the responsibility of those board members to maintain and review check images; however, the signatory board members failed to perform these tasks.”
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Jon Styf is an award-winning editor and reporter who has worked in Illinois, Texas, Wisconsin, Florida and Michigan in local newsrooms over the past 20 years, working for Shaw Media, Hearst and several other companies. Styf is a reporter for The Center Square.
