Officials for the town of Marion are looking to improve controls on expenditures heading into the new year after a surprise bill highlighted a need for greater scrutiny.
In a meeting Tuesday, Town Clerk Shirley Durden told aldermen the town had received a number of bills from Auto Zone, an automotive parts and supplies retailer. The bills, which reflected several months of charges but were all received at one time, total more than $4,000.
Mayor Larry Gill said it is unfortunate that the town didn’t receive the bills earlier as many of the charges were made in the previous fiscal year. Marion’s fiscal year runs from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30 each month, and many of the expenditures included are from before the prior fiscal year’s end, he said.
“Most of it should have been in the last budget, all these July, August, September bills,” he said.
While it is not clear why the town did not receive bills for the earlier charges sooner, Durden said she understood the store was likely trying to close out some end of year business before ringing in 2024. After some investigation, she said she has determined the charges are legitimate.
“Everybody is cleaning out of their end of their year stuff,” she said.
Gill said moving forward the town will look to do a better job of requiring purchase orders for items before they are bought. That will not only help the town keep track of the budget but also protect the town’s vendors who will know an expense has been authorized.
“I don’t care if you go and get an oil change. It don’t matter,” he said. “You need to get a PO to do that.”
In other business, aldermen will be returning about $10,000 to the town’s reserves after tallying the final costs for recent paving projects. The town in October awarded a $194,635 project to Falcon Contracting to pave Clinton Street as well as Panola and Koosa drives.
In November, the Board of Aldermen authorized $30,000 to be taken from the town’s reserves to cover unexpected costs incurred on Clinton Street and the addition of Conehatta Street to the paving project. Any unused funds were to be returned to the town’s reserve once the project is complete.
Gill said Tuesday the final tally had only run about $20,000 and approximately $10,000 would be put back as agreed.
“We pulled more than that from the reserve, but we only used $20,000,” he said.