GENOA,Ark.—The Miller County Rural Volunteer Fire Department’s Governing Board didn’t get a chance to discuss the lone item on the agenda for a special called meeting Tuesday night.
The board met to discuss the financial audit completed recently by the Arkansas Division of Legislative Audit.
Copies of the final audit report were sent to the department’s nine station chiefs and any individual mentioned in the findings by name, said Miller County Rural VFD Chairman George Goynes.
That report will not be made public until it is presented to the Legislative Joint Auditing Committee in Little Rock on Friday. Until then, it is exempted from the state’s Freedom of Information Act.Goynes, citing auditors’ instructions that the audit’s findings not be made public, attempted to call an executive session that included the five-member governing board and the station chiefs.
The Gazette objected the move would violate other provisions of the Arkansas FOIA that allows an executive session only when considering “employment, appointment, promotion, demotion, disciplining, or resignation of any public officer or employee.”
Furthermore, only members of a board and the employee whose status is under consideration are allowed to be present during executive session.
The Gazette contended the seven station chiefs present at Tuesday’s meeting would need to leave the room with the public if there was an executive session.
The deadline for Miller County Rural VFD to provide a written response to auditors’ findings is today. Goynes called Tuesday’s meeting in hopes of drafting a response, but declined to discuss the audit in open session. “I think we just need to close this meeting and go home,” Goynes said. That motion carried.
