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Audits: Commission earns kudos for fund recovery

Wood County Commissioners have experienced first hand the sloppiness and inefficiencies that plague our state bureaucracy and have ground the gears of government in Charleston nearly to a halt.

Bills from the North Central Regional Jail, administered by the Regional Jail and Correctional Facility Authority, have been averaging more than $230,000 per month in Wood County. To their credit, commissioners decided to do something about keeping that cost in check — and take another look at previous bills. In hiring a court coordinator to oversee billing from the regional jail, commissioners implemented a program to audit the regional jail bills and get back what the state has overcharged.

“We continue to go back in time on our jail bills and we continue to find mistakes,” said Commissioner Blair Couch. “We believe as (Wood County Court Coordinator Pam Brust) continues to look, she will find more. With one person alone we found over $8,000 in credits owed us.”

In fact, Wood County has so far recovered $32,335.75 in jail credits from the state, through the auditing process, which began earlier this year. The state has been overbilling, or billing for prisoners who have already been transferred to state custody. According to county officials, one of the problems is inmates not being processed quickly by the state, or being left on the county bill longer than they should be.

So the court coordinator is also looking at people who have been incarcerated, but are still on the county bills and should be moved over to state custody.

To be fair the Regional Jail Authority had already audited for the inmate on which credits of $8,636.75 were eventually returned to Wood County.

“They found credits,” Couch said. “And we found more.”

Kudos to the Wood County Commission for working to make sure nothing more than what is truly owed is paid on the regional jail bill. Counties across the state may want to follow suit.

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