County Comptroller Don Johnson said the large amount of funds earmarked for workers’ compensation for the E-911 Department in recent years might be the result of an error that occurred between the 2005-2006 and the 2006-2007 fiscal years.

It was during that time that the annual amount slated in the county budget for the general workers’ compensation fund from the E-911 Department ballooned from $1,327 to $208,927, an increase of about 15,700 percent.

Johnson said last week that the increase came at the behest of county auditor Garrett, Stephens, Thomas & Fazio PC. According to Johnson, the firm said the E-911 Department needed to pay more into the workers’ compensation fund because the department poses a risk of filing large workers’ compensation claims. But E-911 has less than 30 employees, all of whom work exclusively at a desk in an office. The department has only had one worker’s compensation claim in recent history, totaling less than $10,000.

The amount earmarked for workers’ compensation in the proposed 2009-2010 budget for E-911 exceeds $215,000 on a departmental budget of $1.7 m illion.

Comparatively, the amount earmarked for workers’ compensation in the proposed budget for the Sheriff’s Office was set at less than $50,000 for the 2009-2010 fiscal year — the department has 188 employees, many of whom place their lives in danger on a daily basis. The Fire and Rescue Department, with about 110 positions, was scheduled to pay $34,500 for the upcoming fiscal year, and the Tax Commissioner’s Office was scheduled to pay $1,200 for 14 employees.

“We’re budgeting what the auditors said we needed to cover claims. They said [E-911 operators’] jobs or what they have to do out there ... They’re having to talk to people on the phone who are stressed. The auditors said we weren’t applying enough money considering the job they do,” Johnson said last week. “They have the potential to have a lot of claims.”

But auditors from Garrett, Stephens, Thomas & Fazio didn’t audit the 2006-2007 fiscal year budget until after the fact. The county didn’t hire the firm until May of 2007, a year after the E-911 workers’ compensation fund jumped by more than $200,000, and the firm never told the county such an increase was necessary, said Anne Fazio, owner of the Carrollton-based firm.

“We weren’t involved in the ’06-’07 budget, although we did audit those years,” Fazio said. “We didn’t tell [Johnson] that [E-911 needed to pay more into workers’ compensation].”

The firm that actually performed the 2005-2006 audit, Mauldin and Jenkins of Atlanta, also denies telling county officials that the E-911 Department needed to pay such a high amount of workers’ compensation. What was said, according to Wade Sansury, a partner with Mauldin and Jenkins, is that the county needed to pull the expenditure line item for the department out of the general fund. That would make it easier to track departmental spending based on the fact that all revenues generated by the department must also, according to state law, be placed in a wholly separate account outside of the general fund.

“Back then, some of the [E-911 department’s] activities were being run through the general fund. All of it should have been accounted for in a separate revenue fund,” Sansury said. “Some of our recommendations were that all of that money needed to be recorded in the E-911 fund. As far as any other recommendation, they would have had to come from someone else.”

Every year, the Board of Commissioners votes to extend the service charge on cell phones and land lines that will go toward the local 911 center, and in mid-April, the board once again voted to establish an annual charge of $1 for all county cell-phone customers and $1.50 for those with a land line. This money is earmarked specifically for operations and salaries at the 911 center, as outlined in the Official Code of Georgia Annotated section 46-5-133.

Because the county contributes hundreds of thousands of dollars from the general fund every year to help keep E-911 afloat, Johnson said, the county can turn around and use money originally slated for the department to help fund the entire county government’s workers’ compensation account.

“I’m not sure why the proportion amount for workers’ comp changed that much,” Johnson said. “I need to go back and check the numbers to figure out why so much of a proportion was put on E-911 and to see if an error occurred.”

Such an in-house audit could take as long as a month, Johnson said, and it’s unlikely the county will know if an error did occur until after the board has passed a budget for the upcoming fiscal year. If it becomes clear there was a mistake, the board can go back and amend the budget, adjusting not only the amount that is contributed by E-911 into the general workers’ compensation account but also adjusting the amount paid into E-911 by the general fund in the first place.

“I’m going to call the state office that does the workers’ comp audit, and then I’m going to look to see why that proportionate amount changed so much,” Johnson said. “I’ll figure out what triggered what and go forward from there.”

Board of Commissioners Chairman Bill Chappell did not return a call from The Times-Georgian seeking comment.