Suzanne Stewart
Staff Writer
At the February 10 Durbin Town Council meeting recorder Danielle Findley was appointed mayor to fill the seat left vacant by Donald Peck. Peck resigned the position to take the job as town treasurer.
“I appreciate everyone’s vote in regards to allowing me to serve as mayor until the election,” Findley said. “I feel like it will be a good opportunity to learn.”
Findley resigned the position of recorder, which will be posted for council to fill at the next meeting.
Peck took the job as treasurer after Steven Queen quit. Queen was hired to replace Veronica Lane, who resigned after moving out of town limits.
After taking the position, Peck worked with Rick and Cindy Barkley to familiarize himself with QuickBooks. During this time, Peck and the Barkley’s found several discrepancies in both the general fund and the sewer fund.
“If you look at your Durbin sewer balance sheet and what she [Lane] did pay, if you look at the amount that came out after she paid the bills, $11,841.52, it comes out even and most times in the past, it never did do that,” Peck said.
Peck also reported that he received a letter from the IRS stating that the town did not file all the paperwork it is required to file.
“If we don’t get some paperwork back in to them – some files that they don’t have – we’re going to have a big bill to pay,” Peck said.
“We will – for the foreseeable future – be paying for some of the sins of the past,” Findley said, referring to the financial statements. “Donald spent a lot of hours down here trying to learn the programs and also find things that were missing, and identifying errors. It’s not going to be easy and it’s not going to be in the next week or two that we can have this fixed to where all these numbers make sense or even relate well to each other.”
Rick Barkley said there were several parts of the financial statement that do not make sense and show negative balances.
Barkley suggested that council disregard the balance sheet until Peck is able to fix the discrepancies.
Council thanked Barkley for his assistance with the financial statements and for helping to acclimate Peck to his new job.
In updates:
• Peck announced the candidates for the town election. Running for mayor are Mike Vance and Kenny Lehman; recorder, Danielle Findley; and council, Jeremy Bauserman, Shirley Tracy, Bob Gray, Sheila Varner and Mark Smith. Ballot placement drawing will be held February 24.
• Contractor Jason Bauserman showed council the progress he has made on the updates to the back room of town hall. Council hired Bauserman last year to make a second meeting room to be used for executive sessions and as a break room for town employees.
Durbin Town Council meets the second Tuesday of each month at 7 p.m. in the town office.
Suzanne Stewart may be contacted at sastewart@pocahontastimes.com