HUNTINGDON, Tenn. — A state audit of Carroll County’s finances for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2025, produced four findings. One is tied to the criminal indictment of a probation office employee and three findings mention failures in the Assessor of Property’s office.
The Carroll County Commission approved the audit report at its monthly meeting Monday, May 11.
Despite the findings, auditors issued an unmodified opinion on the county’s overall financial statements, the equivalent of a clean bill of health on the books themselves.
Probation Officer Stole Court Funds
The first finding centered on the Office of Circuit, General Sessions, and Juvenile Court Clerks, where auditors determined that Carroll County had allowed a private probation company to collect court fines and costs “without adequate controls,” resulting in a cash shortage of $16,787.
The county uses Supervisory Services, Inc. (SSI) for private probation services. According to the audit, an SSI employee misappropriated the funds by accepting payments from probationers without issuing receipts and in some cases holding collected money for up to a month before remitting it to the courthouse.
The audit also found the county had no written contract with SSI outlining duties, responsibilities, or internal controls. Auditors said that gap “further weakens controls and increases the risk of fraud, waste, and abuse.”
The Comptroller’s Division of Investigations issued a separate investigative report on May 8, 2025. That investigation identified the employee as Teresa Suzanne Dillingham, who provided probation services in both Carroll and Weakley counties.
In May 2025, the Carroll County Grand Jury indicted Dillingham on one count of theft over $10,000, one count of official misconduct, and one count of forgery over $10,000. The full $16,787 was repaid to the county on October 7, 2025.
The county executed a new written contract with SSI on July 8, 2025.
Circuit Court Clerk Sarah Bradberry disputed the finding in her written response, saying the practice of SSI collecting court costs predated her taking office in 2018 and that she had raised concerns with both the judge and SSI and revised procedures multiple times. “I did not allow misappropriation of monies,” she wrote.
Judge Michael King echoed that position, asking auditors to modify the finding to more accurately reflect that Dillingham was an SSI employee not under court or clerk supervision, and that the arrangement predated both administrations.
Auditors held firm. While acknowledging the clerk’s proactive steps, they reaffirmed her statutory responsibility under state law for all collections in her office.
Assessor’s Office Findings
The Office of Assessor of Property accounted for the three remaining findings, each documenting a different category of failure and collectively raising concerns heading into a reappraisal year.
Sales Verification
Auditors found the assessor failed to maintain an adequate program for verifying real property sales, with error rates in sales questionnaires, data entry, and deed records that the state’s Division of Property Assessments called staggeringly high. Among the figures documented on page 206 of the report: 100 percent of commercial sales questionnaires tested in the fourth quarter contained errors, as did 87.5 percent of farm deed reviews in the same period. One quarter logged 81.3 percent errors on commercial questionnaires. Monitors also found a large number of data entry errors in the first quarter due to incorrect sale dates and prices, and hundreds of deeds listed as “information only.”
State law requires the assessor to maintain a real property sales verification program in accordance with rules set by the Tennessee Board of Equalization. Auditors warned that errors in sales verifications “could result in the over or under assessment of property values.”
Assessor Rita Jones acknowledged the problems in her written response: “We had sales listing and verification errors. We have corrected these. We have put into place some protocols to see that this does not happen again. We are trying hard to correct all issues. We have been minus one employee for about a year which will be resolved shortly.”
Visual Inspections
Auditors found the assessor failed to adequately perform required visual inspections of physical properties, with roughly one in five parcels containing errors affecting property valuation. In two separate samples reviewed during the third quarter, 45 of 208 parcels (22 percent) had valuation errors in the first sample, and 49 of 248 parcels (20 percent) had errors in the second.
State law requires the assessor to complete an on-site review of each parcel of real property over a four-year cycle.
The assessor’s response pointed directly at a personnel failure: “Part of the problem was the field man not doing his work. He is no longer employed. We have corrected these issues and have them keyed.”
Personal Property
The last finding documented a pattern of missed deadlines and procedural failures in the office’s handling of personal property assessments, the annual process by which businesses report furniture, fixtures, machinery, equipment, and other taxable property.
State law requires the assessor to furnish each business with a personal property schedule by February 1. The office did not run those schedules until July 24, 2024, nearly six months late, and based them on an incorrect tax year.
The state’s Division of Property Assessments was forced to send staff to the Carroll County courthouse on three separate occasions to assist with data entry in order to meet an April 19 deadline.
Additionally, nine of 36 required back-assessment reviews could not be completed at all because certification deadlines had already passed.
The assessor’s response: “There was personal property issues that we have new protocols in place to make sure never happens again. We have addressed all the issues.”
Centralized Finance System Recommendation
Alongside the four findings, auditors repeated a best-practice recommendation that has appeared in Carroll County audits for roughly two decades. Auditors recommend that the county should adopt a central system of accounting, budgeting, and purchasing covering all county departments, including the school system.
“Carroll County does not have a central system of accounting, budgeting, and purchasing covering all county departments,” the report states. “Sound business practices dictate that establishing a central system covering all county departments would significantly improve internal controls over the accounting, budgeting and purchasing processes.”
In 2024, the county adopted a private act centralizing operations under the mayor and highway commissioners, but the school department was not included. Auditors recommended full adoption of the County Financial Management System of 1981 or an equivalent private act.
The audit committee discussed moving the process forward at its May 6 meeting, and that discussion was noted in the report presented to the full commission Monday.
Read the full audit report below.