SBI to be asked to look into billing for Pamlico contract work

District Attorney Scott Thomas said Monday that he will ask the SBI to look into the circumstances of a $160,000 billing increase in 2007 by a Pamlico County contractor to the county water department.

County Manager Tim Buck said the contractor, Jack Hardison Jr. Backhoe and Paving of Alliance , was no longer being used for county work.

Hardison said he did work on a county water line two weeks ago, which was paid by the state Department of Transportation. He said the complaints about his prices came from a competitor.

"My prices were fair and I saved the county a lot of money," said Hardison, who had done contract work for the county for nine years.

"It's not about the money," Hardison said. "I don't know what it is. I don't understand what's being investigated."

Hardison said he notified the county in August of 2007 of an increased hourly rate per worker from $25 to $40 and $85 for equipment.

He said the increased billing also reflected the amount of work, including water line repairs due to road construction.

"You've got leaks and they've got to be fixed and there were a lot of leaks last year," he said.

Buck said the increases were paid, but did not raise any red flags by county staff until what he termed recent "accusations on the street."

"The total amount that we paid him increased substantially over the prior fiscal year," Buck said. "It was a combination of the hourly rates going up and the staff started using him more."

He said the work was authorized by former field operations manager Tom Beasley and paid by the county finance office.

"The field operations manager ultimately reviews the work," Buck said. "I believe he had delegated some of that authority out to some of the field staff. The department head is responsible for reviewing and signing off on the invoices."

Beasley left county employment last week to take a job with a nonprofit group.

"I think ultimately he is leaving because he has a better job opportunity," Buck said.

Buck confirmed that a finance office employee also recently resigned, but he said that was because of a medical situation.

Buck discussed the billing matter with an assistant district attorney and last week he and Thomas talked.

Thomas said Buck followed with a summary letter on Friday.

"He and the county commissioners thought it would be best for an outside independent party to review the allegations to make a determination as to whether or not there had been any criminal activity," Thomas said.

"The invoices reflected that the hourly rates went up and we didn't receive any notice," Buck said. "And staff didn't catch it. So it was left uncaught for a little over a year. At that time, we did stop utilizing his services and started doing a lot of the work in-house, or as much as we could."

Buck said the last invoice from Hardison was in October of 2007.

"We have done some review ourselves, some investigation and didn't see anything," Buck said. "Our internal investigations didn't reveal anything. There are just accusations out on the street, so to hopefully restore some public confidence we're going to allow him (Thomas) to review it."

Hardison said he had no written contract with the county.

"It was 24-7, and I showed up within an hour of every job, no matter where t was," Hardison said.

Thomas said an SBI inquiry would determine if an investigation is needed.

"It is important to distinguish between asking them to conduct an initial inquiry and asking them to conduct a full investigation," Thomas said. "They do a preliminary review to see if there is any evidence of criminal activity. Sometimes early on you can determine there is no evidence of criminal activity and if that is the case then you have a situation where maybe you had some poor oversight of the department, as opposed to anything of a criminal nature."