Clinton County Sheriff Rich Kelly issued a response to the State Board of Accounts report on the situation with the commissary funds at the Clinton County Jail.
“The SBOA recently released its report,” said Kelly in a press release issued late Monday afternoon. “For months, I have opened my office and made every document available for review and every employee available as requested by the SBOA. I appreciate their thorough review. The Sheriff’s Office official response is included in the SBOA’s report, which can be accessed via their website.”
In summary:
- The SBOA determined that all money was accounted for in each of the five Sheriff’s funds.
- The SBOA’s contentions with respect to the operation of the Sheriff’s Commissary Fund are the subject of pending litigation in Tippecanoe County. We are seeking a judicial determination on the interpretation of the commissary statute and any contract related to the Commissary Fund.
- Prior to taking office, I had many conversations with other office holders and the county attorney laying out how my administration would run commissary. These conversations included that my wife, Ashley, would serve as my matron and that Ashley would separately run commissary under the same terms as historically done by previous sheriffs. The county attorney and county officials promised a commissary contract and a conflict disclosure form, but they never provided them. Once I realized these documents had not been completed, we went to work to correct these issues.
- For more than 20 weeks now, as this process has drug on, my wife has continued to work as the commissary manager but has postponed being paid for this work until these issues are resolved so that the facility and staff have what they need moving forward. To entirely outsource commissary to a third party vendor would be a deficit to the fund as other vendors charge more and deliver less.
“We will work with the Attorney General’s Office to reconcile the findings in the report as quickly as possible,” Kelly said.