The state comptroller’s office joined the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) in the probe into the city of Eagleville’s operation last week.

Roxanna Pierce, communications officer for the comptroller’s office, confirmed that the comptroller’s municipal audit division is currently conducting an investigative audit.

"But as is the normal procedure, the auditors are refraining from discussing any aspects of the audit until it is completed and released," she said.

Pierce did confirm that the comptroller’s office started its work last Wednesday, and that the audit is being done in conjunction with the TBI.

A source, who asked not to be named, said the forensic audit could possibly look at records as far back as five years.

It is unknown the scope of the investigation, but the city has denied the Eagleville Times’ request for copies of former city recorder Michelle Bennett’s paychecks for the past fiscal year and has indicated the investigators have taken the records.

The investigation of the city of Eagleville began when Rutherford County District Attorney Bill Whitesell contacted the TBI on Jan. 28 and requested that the agency initiate an investigation into the alleged changing of the city’s personnel policy ordinance concerning accrued sick leave pay.

The issue about what the personnel policy says about sick leave pay arose after Bennett was issued a $1,945.17 check for what appeared to be unused sick pay when she left her job on Oct. 31.

The official personnel policy manual adopted in December 2006 says the city "shall not" pay for unused sick leave when an employee leaves the job.

A copy of the suspected altered page of the manual, which said any unused sick leave "shall" be cashed in for compensation, surfaced publicly Jan. 14 when the mayor sent a copy of it in response to a Dec. 7 open records request from the Eagleville Times about the payment.

A subsequent search of the city computer’s activity indicated the sick pay page was last modified Dec. 17 at 8:06 p.m. In the modified file, the word "not" was missing.

At the February council meeting, the city’s outside auditor, John Poole, reported that some "unusual financial recording" had been found. Poole presented his findings as part of a preliminary report on the 2007 fiscal year audit.

Poole told Eagleville city councilmen that the financial report they had received each month during fiscal year 2007 did not show the true amount that Bennett was paid that year.

The "unusual financial reporting," as Poole described it, involved recording certain payroll checks in the revenue (income) amounts instead of showing them as payroll expenses, he said.

As a result, the payroll expenses on the financial reports were not what they should have been because they were reduced "by kind of hiding" those expenses in the revenue section, he alleged.

The auditor said that the "unusual financial reporting" centered on how the paychecks were coded, noting that when checks are paid in a computer system a code is required in order to categorize the expenses.

"What she was doing as opposed to coding (the check) to wages which would increase the wage amount, she took it into the revenue which decreased the revenues at that time," he alleged.

The revenue that was decreased was property tax revenue which comes in over several months, Poole said.

Bennett said in an earlier telephone interview that she does not know how the miscoding occurred.