BOCC: More Shenanigans
as We Descend Deeper
into Clown World:
“We don’t know how much money we have.”

by George Gramlich,
News and Commentary
The Custer County Board of County Commissioners’ (BOCC) February 7, 2024 meeting started at 9 a.m. at the Commissioners’ royal chambers across from the courthouse with all three Commissioners present: Chair Kevin Day and members Bill Canda and Lucas Epp.
Epp kicked off the love fest stating that the County’s building maintenance man had found the leak that was getting water into the basement and causing mold and other bad things to happen. He stopped the majority of it but the roof needs to be replaced to stop it all. Epp said it will cost the County around $5k to get rid of the mold. (When this new roof will happen is anybody’s guess. They have been talking about this for YEARS.)
In Unfinished Business, Epp again took the floor for the Finance report. He said our IT guy turned “accountant”, Vernon Roth, has made all the “adjusting entries” to try to fix all the balancing issues plaguing the system and the County’s auditor is reviewing them. (Kudos to Vernon Roth. The guy has done an unbelievable amount of work trying to save the County from collapsing.) Epp said he is making progress in finding a CPA to come in and fix the conversion issues with the CIC accounting system (and other problems). (This is going to cost the County BIG, BIG bucks.)
Epp also said there was a “glitch” with the last payroll and that CIC was “not available” to fix it. He is going to get ADP and Paychex to come in and give a dog and pony show for the Commissioners. (They need to chose one to replace our new CIC system that is not working properly.)
Canda then piped in saying he found a CPA company that specializes in fixing small government accounting systems but they, like all the rest, would cost huge dollars. Canda said “six figures” for sure and up to and maybe even over $250k. Canda said “We have a serious problem” and “We are responsible for managing the peoples money.” Canda offered to follow up on this, but Epp objected (rightly) that he was in charge of Finance, and he should do the follow up. Eventually all agreed that Epp would be in charge. (Folks, this accounting mess and the audit failure is solely due to Day and ex Commissioner Tom Flower insisting on hiring the totally unqualified Braden Wilson around three years ago to be Finance Director. Wilson blew the transition into the job, the finance software conversion, ignored the audit failures and failed to balance the system. Now we are paying the price for Day’s and Flower’s incompetence to the tune of probably over $250k to fix the issues. Also remember Day was in charge of Finance until recently and he did not do ANYTHING during those two years to fix the issues. This is what happens when you have incompetent people hiring other incompetent people. In other words, Clown World.)
Canda was next with the new Finance Director search. He again explained the process and where the citizen “review committee” would come into play. In Public Comment, citizen Bill Parker (who is on the review committee) said the Commissioners should raise the salary level to $120k. He noted, “I have seen some of the applicants and they are unqualified.”
The Human Resources Director hiring was next. The Commissioners selected “Candidate E” for the job and that person will be called with the offer that afternoon. The salary is $58k a year.
The County’s dispatch service, “FreCom” located in Cañon City, was the next item. It looks like this year’s contract with them will cost around $200k. This year, for the first time, Wet Mountain Fire and EMS have to kick in their share. The County has been paying the whole bill previously.
The next topic looked like tag team wrestling. (Bring it on!) Our Assessor, J.D. Heinrick and our Planning & Zoning Director, Dorothy Carsten, both approached the Commissioners table, apparently in an unhappy mood. Both
wanted a new vehicle to do inspections. J.D. started by saying that his vehicle is 15 years old and no good and he had put money into his budget to get a new one and somehow that budget item request disappears in the budget talks. He said that his office and P&Z want to buy one vehicle that they can share. He said P&Z also put money in their budget proposal and somehow that also mysteriously disappeared. J.D. said “Our vehicles are dying.” He also said they both need
radios to call for help if there is a problem on a visit. He was not a happy camper.
Canda then summed up the complete disarray the Finance debacle has caused saying “We don’t know how much money we have with the CIC crisis.” (This is how bad it is, the Commissioners don’t know how much money they have. This is ALL due to Day and Flower hiring the totally unqualified Braden Wilson to be the Finance Director. The cost to fix the mess and hire new people is all on Day. Total Clown World. But at least Canda had the guts to say it. Day and Epp didn’t say a word when Canda said it, implying total agreement. So don’t shoot Canda, he was just the messenger.)
J.D. then handed the tag team match off to Carsten who got into a pretty righteous rant about how she had brought “so much money in” (with permits and the Use Tax, etc) so “Why can’t I get a truck?” She went on for quite a bit saying her old truck won’t even start sometimes and it is making her field visits “unsafe”.
Canda said the County can’t move on that kind of money now and suggested using the Public Health Department’s vehicle. This caused more discussion. Finally Canda said use the OEM truck as it is not being used. (It just sits there waiting for the mythical huge emergency in the sky.) Things kind of wound down with no real solution.
In Public Comment, Citizen Matt Miles, via Zoom, said that the County’s auditor should not be helping us fix the problems that the Auditor found as it is a conflict of interest and real bad. He said if we don’t solve these problems soon the State is going to come in and take over and who the heck knows what will happen then. He said, “Solve the problem, folks.” He also noted that the recent County credit card issuance was a debacle and that the credit card reporting procedure was not followed.
(Remember our credit card bank, Kirkpatrick, actually had to CANCEL OUR CREDIT CARDS because they were not being paid in time! If that wasn’t Clown World, I don’t know what is.)
Joy Anderson was next up the ramparts. She admonished Epp for ignoring a local retired CPA’s FREE help in fixing the accounting issues. She said the people doing the accounting fixes now are “doing this without proper qualifications.” She then reviewed some of the problems that have surfaced over the last year with Finance. Joy then hammered the Commissioners saying, “Are you taking actions that a normal businessperson would do? (Uh, no.) How did Wilson get the Day’s dirty $45k “severance” check “without Commissioner approval?“ Why did Bivins (the Finance Director after the Wilson debacle) do nothing for two months re the accounting fixes? Then, “Why did the Commissioner overseeing Finance (that is, Day) not “bring the problems to the Commissioners?” She also noted that the Audit cost rose from “$16k to five times that” after Wilson was hired to be Finance Director. (Maybe that was a sign that he had NO CLUE what to do?) She finished with, “We deserve answers. I demand a forensic audit of the Finance Department.” (Amen.)
Citizen Steve Rorick then spoke saying he had a question from Citizen Elizabeth Robinson: What would happen if the state took over Custer County’s finances due to the failed Audit?
Epp answered saying, “They can pull all of our property tax revenue plus the highway money.”
(Then we would be eating bugs, and the libs would be joyous.)
Citizen Len Arrigo then asked what the heck happened to the $400k the Commissioners gave to the Attainable Housing committee a few years ago as it looks like nothing got done? No real response from the Commissioners.
Citizen Bill Parker, a retired very successful businessman, was next. He opened fire with, “The Citizens are weary of asking the same questions over and over again. The problem is no action, no forward movement. Back in November an offer was made to Day and Finance to fix the problems at no cost to the County. If that was accepted, then we wouldn’t be talking about this today. That offer was never brought to the Board. That was wrong. You are acting as a gate keeper making that decision and you did wrong.” (Ouch!)
Citizen Nadine Peterson then took the helm. She said, “ Back in October it was decided to hire a consultant and no action was taken. Why did you not take immediate action on that back then?“
Day answered, “We did not find anybody to do it.” (Which is totally untrue. Citizen Len Arrigo, retired CPA and may be one of the best guys in the whole state to do the job, offered to do it FOR FREE. He was ignored by Day and Epp.)
Thankfully that was the last of the beatings. You can only take so much. And so ends another episode of the extremely popular series, Clown World BOCC Style. Stay tuned for the next exciting episode.