Problems with Nitro police funds
'fixed,' attorney says
By Rusty Marks
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Nitro City
Attorney Richie Robb said some of the money spent from special Nitro police
funds might have been questionable but, in a report issued this week, he
stopped short of saying the police department did anything wrong in
administering the funds.
Last year, the Nitro City Council
asked for a review of all police department special revenue funds after state
auditors couldn't find a paper trail to show where about $58,000 went from the
police benefit fund. The fund was set up to pay for community events and other
projects.
Robb, a former South Charleston
mayor, spent several months looking at the special police funds. The police
department administered the funds without any oversight by the City Council.
In the report issued Wednesday, Robb
said police might have stretched the rules in the way some of the money from
drug seizures was spent, but that he doesn't think the department intentionally
did anything wrong.
More troubling were expenditures made
from the special benefit fund, which included a number of payments to the son
and wife of Police Chief Jack Jordan, Robb said.
"Is that wrong?" Robb said
Thursday. "I don't think it's a criminal violation, but it shouldn't have
been set up that way in the first place."
"There was no wrongdoing,"
Mayor Rusty Casto said Thursday. "It just shows they're policemen and not
CPAs."
Robb said the police department and
city government were at fault for bookkeeping problems and the lack of
oversight of the police funds. Control of the police funds has since been
turned over to the City Treasurer's Office.
"I think it's fixed now,"
Robb said.
"We'll make sure this will
never, ever happen again," Casto said.