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The Nugget Newspaper
Sisters, Oregon
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The contents of the on-line edition of The Nugget represent a selection among the stories that appear in the weekly print edition.

Fire district, county make changes in wake of scandal
By Jim Cornelius

Greg Brown held tight control over the budgets and finances of both the Deschutes County Sheriff's Office and the Sisters-Camp Sherman Rural Fire Protection District.

Even before he was elected Sheriff in 1996, Brown was the lieutenant responsible for budget in the Sheriff's Office. His control deepened after his election.

While the Deschutes County Board of Commissioners had oversight responsibility, Brown's control over the budget numbers left them with little ability to raise questions.

"There just weren't any other people in that department who understood his budget," said Commissioner Tom DeWolf.

Even when an outside auditor noted concerns about oversight on some accounts, the warning was not urgent and no action was taken.

Brown's level of control over the budget might have raised more red flags had not the commissioners trusted his honesty. After all, he was the top law enforcement officer in the county.

A similar situation took root at the Sisters-Camp Sherman RFPD.

Starting nearly two decades ago, when the district was small, Brown took on more and more responsibility for finances and budgeting. Other district officials were glad to have a person of his expertise willing to do the work.

Brown gradually assumed total control over the books and the budget.

That is an unusual situation for fire districts. Fire Chief Don Rowe told The Nugget that it is unheard of for a board member to have such complete control and for a fire chief to have so little input into the budget.

"I thought it was strange that this was the only department where the chief didn't have anything to do with the budget," Rowe said.

"It was very difficult to get budget information from him."

It may have been strange, but it wasn't suspicious. Rowe understood the reasons that the RFPD had evolved that way. And Brown was trusted completely. After all, he was the top law enforcement officer in the county.

Both Deschutes County and the Sisters-Camp Sherman RFPD were burned by their trust -- and because procedures were not in place to prevent or to detect theft.

"Could we do better? "Yes." Commissioner Dennis Luke said at a press conference last week. "Will we do better? That is our intention."

Sheriff Les Stiles has already changed the budgeting process to involve more officials. The county has disallowed any bank accounts that are not under the direct control of the finance department. New accounting software has been installed to better track funds.

The Sisters-Camp Sherman RFPD has undertaken similar reforms.

A Certified Public Accountant was hired in the midst of the Brown investigation to do a first-ever systems analysis and to recommend new procedures.

These include things as simple as requesting copies of both sides of canceled checks received from the bank and monthly board approval of payments.

"There is no check written here over $1,000 without board approval so it's in the minutes," said District Clerk Susan Houk.

New accounting software is in use that should make theft more difficult and easier to detect.

And, at Chief Rowe's request, the budget is set up so that he can monitor how much is in each fund on an ongoing basis.

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