Thumbnail: Former Curry County Finance Director Keina Wolf (far left) tendered her resignation effective Monday | edited screenshot
Curry County commissioners appointed Treasurer Nick Vicino to provide financial oversight on an interim basis following the resignation of Keina Wolf effective Monday.
Vicino will receive a 25 percent salary increase for taking on extra duties, including the supervision of finance staff, said Commissioner Jay Trost who read out the order at an emergency meeting Friday.
Vicino’s other duties will include ensuring accounts payable and accounts receivable are entered into the county’s Casselle government software system and to ensure that the use of county accounts are in compliance with policies and government accounting standards. Vicino will also be required to prepare financial statements and documents for the county budget and authorize claims for payment.
County Clerk Shelley Denney will have secondary signature authority, according to the county’s order.
Commissioners Brad Alcorn and Patrick Hollinger participated in the meeting via phone.
Before the Board voted, Vicino asked that commissioners schedule a workshop “to see how we’re going to move forward.”
“I appreciate this responsibility,” he said, “but on an interim basis until we find a way to go forward.”
Commissioners agreed to schedule a workshop for March 7.
The Board’s decision comes about two weeks after Wolf described for the Board how she and Vicino spent New Years weekend in 2024 addressing an email from the U.S. Department of Treasury asking about $2.7 million in American Rescue Plan money that hadn’t been accounted for.
According to Wolf, the county had received about $4.4 million in ARP dollars and had only accounted for about $1.734 million. She blamed her predecessor and the previous treasurer, saying that she “takes no responsibility to the prior people in the department that had the inability to do their jobs.”
In December, Wolf said that when she began working for Curry County in February 2024, 26-month-old deposits hadn’t been entered into the county’s fiscal system. The county still owed pass-through tax revenue to other small agencies, had made about $30 million in bank adjustments and recorded $3 million to the wrong funds, which affected other funds.
Wolf’s contract went before the Board of Commissioners on Dec. 19 for discussion and potential renewal, though commissioners elected to wait until Hollinger took his seat to make a decision.
Wolf came to work for Curry County after her predecessor left and the county had contracted to work with the Lane Council of Governments.
Earlier this month, Wolf told commissioners that she and Vicino were going back to 2021 to figure out where the ARP dollars were allocated to and why they weren’t recorded.
