Weston County commissioners press for audits as state warns special districts may be dissolved

Commissioners in Weston County spent much of their meeting grappling with Department of Audit notices that listed several special districts as out of compliance and could trigger a statutory dissolution process.

Unidentified Speaker 1, reading from a state notice, said the county ‘shall declare the board of directors vacant and shall fill the board by appointment for the purpose of dissolving the district,’ and asked staff to produce the original letter for the board to review. Unidentified Speaker 2, who is managing hospital operations and finances, apologized for the confusion and said the workload has been “a huge strain” while promising to work with counsel and to contest any inappropriate state action.

The board focused on which fiscal year audit is the issue: multiple members said the 2023–24 audit (referred to in the meeting as “23-24”) is the audit of concern, while the 2024–25 audit had been granted an extension. Speaker 6 said the county had received inconsistent messages from state staff — including a reported extension from ‘Alicia Jones’ — and urged the group to obtain an explicit, dated confirmation from the Department of Audit stating which year the audit notice covers.

Commission members explicitly noted that the Department of Audit’s letter requires the county treasurer to withhold distributions to any special district that has not complied until the audit department certifies compliance. Speaker 7 cited what was read in the letter and a statutory provision (transcribed in the meeting as “statute 91507”) that requires public notice in the newspaper when a special district is in danger of dissolution; the cost of that notice is assessed to the district.

The board did not immediately move to remove any board members or dissolve a district. Instead they agreed on several next steps: staff will obtain and deliver the department’s letter and any audit files available from third-party auditors (ECA and others), secure a written confirmation from the Department of Audit about the fiscal year(s) covered, and return to the board within two weeks. Unidentified Speaker 4 (the CFO) offered monthly oversight meetings to keep commissioners updated on hospital finances and on audit remediation progress.

If the county sets a public hearing (several commissioners suggested March 1 or the first meeting in March), the statutory timelines that could lead toward dissolution would begin; commissioners stressed that a public hearing could be canceled if the districts come into compliance before the hearing date.

The board framed the conversation as procedural: they repeated that the county’s authority flows from state statute and emphasized wanting to give districts an opportunity to remedy deficiencies before formal actions are taken.