Columbus fixes financial discrepancies, appoints supervisor

By Sterling McGinn

The Columbus Township Board has their financial records back on track after recently finding a large financial discrepancy.

At the September 8 regular meeting of the board, new treasurer Bob Crawford, who is the third treasurer since 2024, said that the discrepancies reported at last month’s meeting were in the capital investment account in QuickBooks.

“Somebody made a category in QuickBooks and reconciled the months, and it’s called reconciliation discrepancies,” Crawford said. “There was one for $1,554 and there is another one for $4,600 in there. Once you delete those out of there, I reconciled everything and everything thing is accounted for.”

Crawford noted that $6,000 in interest that didn’t show up in the audit. “That was a big stumbling block for me to try and figure out,” he said.

At the August meeting, Crawford said he didn’t feel anything unlawful was going on after a discrepancy of $193,249.77 between the books and the bank statements was found.

“Everything is accurate—the general fund, QuickBooks, and my own program I use, and the front page of the capital investment account is what QuickBooks shows right now.”

Clerk Margaret Nelson commended everyone on the board for the recent audit, which she says went well. “I was here for the two full days, and because everything was done ahead of time and in an orderly fashion, it went very smooth,” she said. “We had no fines, but [the auditor] is going to write a few recommendations which I will pass on to everyone when it comes available.”

In other business, Stielstra reported that the township received two applications from interested individuals seeking the vacant supervisor’s position; one applicant later withdrew.

Columbus resident Terry Nelson has agreed to be the township’s new supervisor following the resignation of Roger Auble. The board voted to appoint Nelson at the end of the meeting.

Nelson, whose wife is the township clerk, worked for 25 years as a quality assurance engineer in the nuclear power industry before locating to the Newberry area, where he worked as a nurse at Helen Newberry Joy Hospital and retired five years ago as a house supervisor. He currently serves on the Helen Newberry Joy Hospital Board.

Finally, the board voted to appoint Emmet Dumas as the new Columbus Township Fire Department Chief effective October 1. Outgoing Chief Jon Pope will be the department’s assistant chief.