News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The Town of Byrdstown is not in compliance with Tennessee Annotated Code requirements of a Chief Municipal Finance Officer.
According to the Municipal Finance Officer Certification and Education Act of 2007, each municipality should have one city employee with all requirements who is responsible for financial operations.
Mayor Sam Gibson said Byrdstown is in the process of achieving this, but the designated employee has not passed the needed classes yet.
“Basically, the Comptroller’s Office said, ‘Look here. You need to get this done.’ And we said, ‘Yeah, we know it,'” Gibson said. “We’ve had a quite a few issues that have came up that has kept us from getting it done. Some of it is neglect on our part, where we just haven’t pushed it and got it completed.”
Gibson said the employee was hired about three years ago, but personal life situations and COVID delayed completion. The Board of Alderman during Monday’s meeting signed a written response to the Comptroller’s Office acknowledging the deficiencies.
“There has been a lot of distractions from the program, so hopefully, those things are over,” Gibson said. “And we can get ourselves back in gear and get everything completed.”
The Comptroller’s Office can hold up to 15 percent of the town’s share of sales tax until the deficiency is corrected. Gibson said the noncompliance should be answered by the end of the year.
“We are going to push her a little bit and try to help her to get all that fulfilled,” Gibson said. “We are not trying to contract with anyone at this point. If it gets to where they withhold funds, we’ll probably not contract unless it gets to that point.”
The courses take about two years to complete, but the employee only lacks four courses. Byrdstown received notification of the noncompliance on March 1st.
