The county treasurer has estimated the county has lost as much as $14,000 this month after having left more than $2 million in an account that hasn’t been earning interest.

The money was taken out September 29 for routine accounting purposes. It is taken out each month while County Treasurer Nancy Duckett figures out how much money the county will need to pay bills, then it goes straight back in an account to begin earning interest again.

This month, things didn’t go as planned, and the county has missed out on earning an amount estimated between $13,000 and $14,000 in interest.

"When I ran the report on September 7, I had a negative balance, which I knew was not correct. That’s why I haven’t been able to do the CD. I have to make sure those figures are right," Duckett said.

The exact cause of the accounting error hasn’t been attributed, but the October 31 Commissioner’s Court meeting was set to examine the matter during press time Tuesday.

Duckett said someone somewhere may have double posted an entry by mistake, and that could’ve caused the error. She said the money didn’t go back in because she needed to first know for certain how much the county needed to pay bills.

"We run receipts. The auditor’s office pays bills. When money’s coming in and bills are going out, we pay payroll twice a month, we pay bills twice a month, and I have to speculate sometimes what those bills are going to be. If I speculate wrong … then that can cause" an overdraft at the bank, she said. "Something obviously happened that didn’t get posted. All I can say is that I cannot control the (bill paying). We do the receipts. The auditor’s department pays the bills."

County Judge Alger Kendall, Jr. said he and the commissioners would be looking into the matter thoroughly.

"It’s normal that they run those CDs about 30 days, bring them back in, and then calculate how much money you need for that month, put the balance out for CDs, and keep what you anticipate using for expenditures," he said. "It’s easier for accounting purposes to do that. It should’ve been put back in the first working day of October."

County Auditor Lajuana Kasprzyk said she hadn’t heard anything from Duckett about the matter.

"She has not brought any of that to my attention. Not as far as the bills are concerned," she said during an interview October 30.

Kasprzyk did note she was aware of a discrepancy in a report the treasurer’s office generates, but said all the reports her office generates have been accurate to the best of her knowledge.