FRANKFORT, Ky  Six-figure bonuses to spouses and taxpayer funds used for personal bills were findings from an audit of several Kentucky county attorney offices.  

 

What You Need To Know


  • Audit finds Lawrence Co. Attorney gave wife $126,500 in bonuses

  • Audit finds Gallatin Co. Attorney's office used money for personal expenses

  • Audit findings referred to FBI and Kentucky Attorney General's Office

 

 

According to Auditor Mike Harmon (R-Kentucky), Lawrence County Attorney Mike Hogan awarded his wife, Joy Hogan, two bonuses totaling $126,500 over two years on top of her $40,000 a year position as a legal secretary. The two payments, a $61,400 bonus in FY 2018 and $61,500 in FY 2019 were from the county’s delinquent tax fee fund. 

“In this particular case we looked at nine particular county attorneys. Some of the other ones had provided bonuses, but this was the largest in the percentage that went specifically to the spouse of the county attorney,” Harmon said. 

Harmon said the payment goes against a requirement in the Kentucky Constitution that any payment to public employees should be for consideration of public services, which means for salary or wages for work performed. Harmon said his auditors found no evidence the large bonus was for that. Harmon also said this likely violates local ethics rules because Hogan benefitted personally from the bonus since it went to his family member. 

In a response to the auditor’s office, Hogan denied any wrongdoing in awarding the payments to his wife, saying the statute of how to use delinquent tax funds is left open. 

“Based on the wide latitude for discretionary spending of the Delinquent Tax Fund presently given to the Kentucky County Attorneys under current law, it is the position of the Lawrence County Attorney that the compensation for Joy Hogan received from the Delinquent Tax Fund was salary supplementation in the form of honest pay for honest work that clearly benefitted the public in the form of compensating an exemplary employee who goes above and beyond to serve the office and the people of Lawrence County at a consistently high level,” his response said. 

The audit found that in total $134,500 of bonuses was given to staff within the office. 

Harmon has referred the findings to the FBI, IRS, Kentucky Office of the Attorney General, Kentucky Department of Revenue and the Lawrence County Ethics Commission. 

That was not the only wrongdoing found during the audit of nine county attorneys. Harmon’s office also found a possible misuse of funds from the Gallatin County Attorney. 

The audit found the Gallatin County Attorney’s Office used $36,000 to pay for personal expenses and expenses related to County Attorney John Wright’s private practice. The payments spanned from June 2017 to December 2019. The audit found the bookkeeper was Wright’s wife. 

The majority of the funds used to pay for the Wright family cell phone, and a credit card bill used to pay for personal and office expenses came from the county Delinquent Tax Fund. Thousands were also taken from the fund to pay loans for the Gallatin County Attorney’s personal law practice. 

The wife of the county attorney said she intended to pay back the county for the personal expenses but fell behind. 

“She admitted they were sadly behind on reimbursements records show that only 19% of the more than $12,500 spend on the family cell phone bills had been reimbursed.” 

In response to the audit, Wright asked Harmon to wait 30 days before making the results public and asked to meet with Harmon in person. Wright also hired a CPA to help keep track of the financial records. 

The findings have been referred to the FBI, the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office and the Gallatin County Ethics Commission. 

Harmon also highlighted an audit on Boyd County Attorney’s Child Support Enforcement Office that resulted in a former office supervisor revealing they had taken $113,000 from the CSE office over seven years. The investigation resulted in 77 charges against the former supervisor by the Kentucky State Police. Harmon said he referred that case to the FBI and the Kentucky Office of the Attorney General. 

Also, Harmon found six county offices examined did not have documentation of expenditures made for 36 percent of expenses. In addition, eight of the nine county attorney offices were not turning over excess cold check fees to their fiscal courts as required by Kentucky law. 

As a result of the findings, Harmon is asking the General Assembly to pass legislation requiring an annual audit of the state’s county attorney offices—currently there is no audit required by law. 

"If we truly want to shine the light of transparency on how public funds are spent, then county attorneys must be included in the same way fiscal courts, sheriffs, and clerks are held accountable to the taxpayers,” Harmon said.