JASPER, Tenn. -- An audit report from the last fiscal year showed some findings that Marion County leaders agree need to be addressed.
At the February meeting of the County Commission, Audit Committee Chairman John Moore, a certified public accountant, said that panel met on Feb. 4 to review the report and the problems it listed.
The committee agreed unanimously that three major issues needed to be tackled, he said.
One was that the audit committee's members couldn't determine whether uncollected property taxes were ever "written off" the county's ledgers or if they were "carried on the tax rolls forever."
County Mayor David Jackson said those delinquent taxes were not taken off the books until they reached Judy Brewer, the county's assessor of property.
"We still don't really have a definite plan on how we're going to determine what's on the book and what's not on the book at this time," he said. "We're still working on that."
At the end of June 2014, Moore said, the county's total uncollected taxes had reached about $15 million. Marion has an annual property tax assessment of just under $10 million.
"So, you've got more than a full year outstanding," he said.
County Attorney Billy Gouger said he was not surprised by those figures.
"They [the unpaid taxes] go back for years," he said.
Another concern the audit committee identified was the ongoing problem with unpaid court costs and fines from the county's general sessions and circuit courts.
Gouger said the county has an existing contract with a collection agency that is tasked with recovering those debts.
"It has not been very successful," he said. "There is some effort now being made to remedy the problems that we've had."
The board might consider some other contractors for that job soon, but until then, Gouger said, the estimated $2 million to $3 million in court costs that have gone uncollected for more than a decade is "sizable."
Commissioner Tommy Thompson said the county has hired "numerous" collection agencies over the years to recover that money, but none have been effective because they "cherry pick" the list of debtors.
"They get the easy ones -- the people that have jobs that they can garnish the wages and that type thing," he said. "The old turnip out here that doesn't have anything -- they don't try very hard to collect from them."
Thompson praised Sessions Court Judge Mark Raines for trying to help solve the problem by tying unpaid fines to offenders' probation.
"Our circuit [court] seems to care less," Thompson said. "They say, 'Well, we're not a debtors court.' We ought to have some system where [offenders] make some kind of arrangement to pay their fine when they come out of that courtroom. They just hit the street, and you don't see them anymore."
Finally, the audit committee requested the board instruct each county department manager to submit a response to any audit findings directed at that department and complete a detailed plan to correct the problems.
The board voted unanimously to do so.
Jackson said the committee's meeting actually cleared one of the audit findings from last year because that panel "had never met."
"The committee concluded that the financial position of the county and the severity of the audit findings have shown improvements over prior years," Moore said.
Ryan Lewis is based in Marion County. Contact him at ryanlewis34@gmail.com.