County out about $50,000 in Keep Effingham Beautiful funds; employees cleared | savannahnow.com

A draft audit released Tuesday afternoon comes to no clear conclusions, but seems to indicate that Effingham County is out about $50,000 that was inappropriately put in a private Keep Effingham Beautiful account over a five-year period.

Commission Chairman Wendall Kessler asked certified public accountant Donald Caines of Rincon if any present or past county employees misappropriated funds.

“It does not appear so,” Caines said.

The 13-page report by the accounting firm Caines, Hodges & Co. P.C., says $70,089 in county funds were deposited into the KEB account between December 2007 and March 2013. When the account was closed in March, $12,817 left in it went into county coffers.

That leaves $57,272 in question. Of that, $4,000 came from the board of commissioners, when it was still funding the group. And some of $5,648.79 in recycling rebates from Republic Waste should have gone to KEB, but the auditor said in the report that he can’t determine from the company’s contract how much should have gone to the county sanitation department and how much should have gone to KEB.

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