Ortonville- Mary Clark has resigned as village clerk/treasurer.
Village Council President Ken Quisenberry confirmed that the village received a resignation letter dated Nov. 5 from Clark, whose accounting practices were being investigated through an audit by the Flint firm Lewis & Knopf.
‘The audit confirmed the inadequacies in accounting that we suspected,? said Quisenberry. ‘Checks were not being taken care of in a timely manner and overall accounting practices were not followed.?
The resignation letter did not state Clark’s reason for resigning. She declined comment.
Clark was given paid administrative leave by the council on Oct. 19 after a councilmember brought questionable recordkeeping to Quisenberry’s attention.
Quisenberry said there were checks made out to the village that had not been cashed and were placed in a filing cabinet. He adds that all the checks were eventually cashed, but some had been around for a period of time.
‘Things were coming in and some made it to the bank in three days, some in ten days, some in a month or so,? he said. ‘There is no way to estimate an amount. There will be no criminal investigation and there hasn’t been anything to lead us to that.?
All funds are now accounted for and have been properly deposited. The audit is continuing, he added, as well as monitoring by the council of treasury practices. He was unsure of what changes would take place, but said there would ‘certainly? be a change in the checks and balances.
Quisenberry noted that last year’s audit had some beginning indications of accounting problems that were expounded on this year.
‘Every audit will say you need to right something,? he said. ‘It turns out the areas they addressed are what got worse… The village was going to remedy these problems one way or another and now we’re going to remedy them in a way that does not involve our clerk/treasurer.?
Besides problems as treasurer, Clark also had difficulties in her clerk duties. Controversy erupted in June, hours prior to a petition filing deadline for the September village council election, after Clark had mistakenly posted as available a 2-year council trustee term. In actuality, the 2-year term was a partial term and another 4-year term was available in addition to the two that had already been announced. The error nearly caused a candidate to miss the filing deadline.
At the time of the mishap, Clark apologized and Joseph Rozell of the Oakland County Elections Division said there were no sanctions in place for such an error.
Clark has faced controversy before. According to The Oxford Leader, in 1992, as treasurer of Oxford Township, Clark was accused of malfeasance of her office by using township time and people in support of a write-in campaign to keep her job. She admitted to using a township computer and paper to work on a flyer; a township employee also worked on the flyer.
Quisenberry said the council will begin the process of finding replacements for the clerk/treasurer’s duties in a couple weeks.