County officials decided to hire extra help for the county treasurer during their special meeting November 6 at the county courthouse.

The decision came after finding out the county had lost about $14,000 recently when around $2 million wasn’t placed in an interest-bearing account.

Phyllis Foulds, an auditor for Goliad County, will be added to county treasurer Nancy Duckett’s staff on a part-time basis.

"We are going to bring (Foulds) in on a consulting basis," County Judge Alger Kendall said during an interview shortly after the meeting. "She’s going to be here part time and we’re going to meet with her this week and then with Nancy. The idea is to have someone there that has some familiarity with county finances and hopefully will be able to assist (the treasurer)."

Kendall noted Foulds would be working in Karnes County mostly to observe, offer help, provide suggestions, and to report back to Commissioners Court. She has not been given a supervisory position over Duckett.

He also wanted to stress the court had not attributed blame to any one county department for the loss of potential revenue.

"It’s certainly not (that the county treasurer is lacking) experience. She’s been treasurer for six or seven years, now. She came in at a very difficult time, taking over for a lady that had been removed from office. She did a lot of work at that time and as far as I know had things straight," Kendall said. "As far as saying this has happened or that happened or this is why it’s that way, that’s probably a lot of speculation. The only thing we know is things weren’t going right now the way Commissioner’s Court felt it should be."

The county’s general fund, which runs more than $2 million, is taken out of its interest-bearing account on a monthly basis for routine accounting purposes. Duckett is responsible for figuring out how much money the county will need to pay bills, then the money goes straight back in an account to begin earning interest again.

Undetermined accounting errors last month cast doubt on the amount of money the county was going to need to pay its bills, so the general fund balance was held back from being deposited until the error was sorted out.

Kendall said the same thing has happened in other previous months, as well, putting the total amount of lost revenue at around $60,000.