Dent County Presiding Commissioner Darrell Skiles said that he is optimistic about the progress he expects in the coming weeks with the Department of Revenue (DOR) regarding solutions to funds withheld without warning from the county by DOR at the beginning of 2021. The withholding was in response to correcting a coding error made by DOR at an earlier date that incorrectly disbursed funds to Dent county instead of neighboring counties.
The optimism that Skiles expressed was in response to a May 3 meeting that he and Dent County Commissioner Gary Larson held with Wayne Wallingford - director of the Department of Revenue (DOR). The meeting was hosted at Sen. Justin Brown’s office in Jefferson City; Brown, Rep. Ron Copeland, and Zach Wyatt - DOR legislative director also took part in the meeting.
The county has been grappling for answers from DOR since Feb. 22 last year when county treasurer, Denita Williams, reviewed disbursements from DOR into county coffers. That is, she noticed no funds disbursed to the county during the month of February last year. (All taxes are collected by the state and then disbursed back to local tax entities.)
County officials learned from DOR that there had been a coding error, at that time totaling more than $1 million, that showed Dent receiving tax funds from a large entity that should have been going to Iron and Reynolds counties. That entity was later identified by The Salem News as the Doe Run Company; however, it’s important to note that this error does not seem to stem from any mistake at the Doe Run Company or any of the related counties. The coding error appears to have happened at the state level.
Surprisingly, DOR knew about the coding error for months, but did not notify Dent County before withholding funds. A decision that, had it happened to a county with a smaller budget than Dent’s, might have bankrupted the county. This led Skiles to remark on the importance of holding DOR accountable and preventing this from happening again.
For Skiles and other Dent County officials, it’s not a matter of whether or not the funds should be paid back. Skiles noted on multiple occasions that “if we owe, we owe.” It’s a matter of having safeguards in place to prevent withheld disbursements and to prevent punishing counties for mistakes made at the state level.
When the county inquired about the reason for withholding funds and by what statutory authority DOR could do so, the department did not adequately respond until contacted by the county’s attorney, Travis Elliott - Missouri Association of Counties attorney on retainer.
Additionally, DOR informed the county in April of 2021 that they would owe an additional $700,000, though DOR did not withhold those funds and their legal team entered negotiations with the county’s attorney.
Again, in October of 2021, Dent County learned that DOR would be seeking nearly another $200,000 from the county.
Skiles described the repetitive nature of DOR returning to require more money as a “Groundhog’s Day-type nightmare”, referencing the 1993 movie starring Bill Murray in which the main character keeps reliving the same day.
All of these events led up to last week’s meeting with Wallingford, who was not yet a part of DOR at the time that either the coding error(s) or withheld funds occurred (Gov. Mike Parson appointed Wallingford as DOR director in December, 2021).
Skiles said that Wallingford was very understanding of the “groundhog’s day”-type horror that the county is facing with DOR continually returning to tell the county that they owe more.
“He was very sympathetic to the angst we’ve felt through all this,” said Skiles.
“It was a very good meeting,” Skiles told The Salem News during a phone interview Friday afternoon.
“I just wanted a chance to visit with him person-to-person about the shock that we faced,” he said. Skiles went on to explain that, in his view, the purpose of the meeting with Wallingford was to make sure that Wallingford has a clear understanding of the problems that DOR has caused the county and how devastating such an event might have been to some poorer counties.
Skiles said that Wallingford’s attitude regarding the issue was a breath of fresh air after having had a tumultuous relationship with the department over the past several months and being met with what Skiles has described as a “cavalier attitude”.
Rep. Copeland also told The Salem News when asked over the phone Friday evening that as an observer he took two major things from the meeting:
The first being that, in his perception, Wallingford is working hard to address issues that face the DOR (issues that predate Wallingford’s appointment to his role as DOR director).
The second being that “they agreed that the information that they provided regarding this wasn’t adequate and that they should have given notice,” said Copeland.
Sen. Brown also told The Salem News that he was pleased with the meeting as well. “The new director showed concern for the process and how the situation was handled,” said Brown via email Monday morning. “It is my understanding that the notification process has since been updated. I believe Director Wallingford understood the concerns we had and will take this issue and make the process even better,” said Brown.
According to Skiles, the DOR legal team and the county attorney are still working out some of the details; however, Skiles now has confidence that a final solution can be reached in the near future. Skiles forecasted that an agreement would be reached in the next few weeks. “I’m anxious to get this over with and behind us,” said Skiles.
Part of the coming solution is to determine the exact amount the county actually owes back to the state and then to agree upon a period of time for the county to pay that amount back. Presumably, the state would subsequently disburse funds back to the correct entities.
“We had to swallow that first [$1 million] without knowing that we could spread it out or that there would be several hundred thousand dollars added to this deal,” said Skiles.
In summary, the county has already had $1 million withheld in one lump, and expects to pay another amount that’s somewhere around or under $900,000 over a soon-to-be agreed upon period of time.
“The biggest thing is that we want to make sure that nothing like this happens to any county again,” said Skiles.
Previous coverage related to this story can be found at www.thesalemnewsonline.com.
