BY SARIT LASCHINSKY

Special to The Press

Before moving into the regular business agenda, the approval of previous meeting minutes became a point of debate and disagreement for South Whitehall commissioners during their Sept. 15 meeting.

Board President Christina “Tori” Morgan provided several comments regarding the Aug. 18 meeting minutes, which had been tabled after a request from Commissioners Mike Wolk and Diane Kelly, to add additional language regarding the township’s 2016-19 audit reports.

Morgan said she took issue with a newly-added section describing how Wolk stated there was no information in the auditor’s report which attributed problems with the 2016-19 audits to the township’s 2012 embezzlement, and that current deficiencies were caused by a multitude of “completely separate reasons” which were identified.

She said these statements provide a “skewed” narrative, adding that in 2014 the township was still investigating data related to the embezzlement, and the embezzlement trial did not take place until 2015.

Wolk disagreed and said his first written sentence was correct as the audit report’s description of deficiencies, “does not mention the embezzlement at all.”

He proposed the sentence remain in the minutes “because it’s a fact,” but said he would be fine with his comments about the embezzlement being removed.

Morgan, however, said she was not comfortable keeping any of the language and was unsure if the interpretation of the auditor’s report was correct.

Wolk and Kelly then suggested tabling the minutes again to review the auditor’s report and confirm the language.

Wolk also said when he made his comments Aug. 18, he had read the audit report’s details about the deficiencies and said the word “embezzlement” did not appear, adding nothing in the report attributed the delays in producing the 2016-19 audits to the embezzlement.

He also said his comments provided in the minutes were part of his monthly finance committee report, not “idle commentary,” and believed this report should be included in the meeting minutes.

Morgan said the township was well beyond Robert’s Rules of Order and “to pick and choose the comments we put into it based on our personal comments” is not for the meeting minutes, but rather the virtual meeting recording.

Kelly said the virtual and audio recording of the minutes were difficult to understand and decipher, saying until the audio issues are worked out, “the playback is not ideal.”

After further discussion, a motion to table the minutes to confirm the included statements and auditor’s report language failed in a 2-2 decision with Wolk and Kelly voting “yes.”

Morgan and Commissioner Ben Long voted “no.” Commissioner Joe Setton was absent.

After additional back-and-forth debates, Morgan agreed to go back and review the audit report but she did not agree with the current minutes, and a second motion passed 4-0.