WALHALLA — Oconee County officials have requested an investigation of County Treasurer Greg Nowell for possible misappropriation of funds.

Walhalla Police Chief Tim Chastain confirmed Friday that his office had taken an incident report from County Finance Director Phyllis Lombard and had faxed the report to the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division along with a request that the agency handle the investigation.

Jennifer Timmons, spokesperson for SLED, said late Friday that no investigative proceedings had yet begun.

Nowell was reported by his staff to be out of the office Friday afternoon and could not be reached for comment.

At the heart of the issue, according to Lombard and County Administrator Dale Surrett, is a check for $3,117 drawn for one purpose that Nowell allegedly altered and used to make a payment to the U.S. Post Office.

He has, according to Surrett and Lombard, not provided any receipts to explain what he used the check for and has verbally refused to explain the situation.

“He said the check was made out to him and that he could use it for whatever he wanted,” said Surrett.

Surrett said it is supposed Nowell might have used it to pay for postage for the mass mailing of tax notices.

“We don’t say he’s converted this to his own use,” said Surrett. “But we don’t have any receipts, any paper trail for county records.”

Government accountancy and fiscal accountability demand scrupulous attention to details and record keeping, Surrett said, and Nowell has shown a tendency to not follow normal procedures. But this, he said, was more serious.

“This is more than just an accountancy thing,” Surrett said. “This is using an altered check at the post office.”

The incident began over a week ago, according to Surrett and Lombard, when Nowell requested the check from a fund holding monies collected as advance mobile home taxes to be put into the county’s general fund and destined for distribution to the municipalities and other political entities.

It is, said Surrett and Lombard, a normal procedure.

But on Wednesday, Surrett said, Nowell’s staff requested a check in the identical amount, to be drawn from another account but to be used, again, for distribution of the mobile home tax monies.

It was then, said Surrett and Lombard, that they learned of the first check having been altered by having the original written purpose of the check marked out and the check then used to make a payment to the U.S. Postal Service.

When they brought their concern over the possible legal implications of the apparent unconventional handling of funds and the altered check to Nowell’s attention, Surrett and Lombard said, he asserted his right to use the check for whatever purpose he wanted and invited them to bring in law enforcement to investigate.

“We met with the county attorney,” Surrett said, “and that is exactly what he advised.”

County Council chairman George Blanchard said Friday he thought an investigation of the matter by law enforcement was “entirely appropriate.”

“And if there is anything found amiss, we’ll have to take corrective action,” Blanchard said.

The incident this week, according to Surrett and Lombard, was not the first time Nowell’s methods of handling funds have raised eyebrows.

To date, they said, Nowell, in his capacity as treasurer, has received a total of $14.4 million dollars in state funds destined for the School District of Oconee County and transferred the monies directly to the school system without passing the funds through county accounts.

“There is no way this year, or any subsequent year, that Oconee County can show it got the money,” said Lombard. “Since the school district doesn’t have fiscal autonomy, their records are part of our records, and there is no clear audit trail.”

Records show the school district got the funds, but not that the county distributed them,” Lombard said.

The dangers of sloppy records cannot be understated, said Surrett and Lombard. All Nowell’s unconventional handling of county funds, even if not illegal, will have to be reported to the county’s external auditors.

The apparent sloppiness of accounting could, they said, negatively affect the county’s bond rating.

“We’ve worked extremely hard to build up the financial integrity of the county,” Lombard said. “And then this is happening.”

And the sloppy accounting procedures are, Surrett said, baffling.

“This is not calculus, this is not algebra, this is just basic math,” he said.

Nowell, who is running as a Republican against Constitution Party candidate Susie Cornelius in seeking his first full term, was appointed treasurer by Gov. Mark Sanford in Feb. 2007 and is completing the unexpired term of Anne Dodd.

According to Tom Hendricks, who was county administrator when Nowell took office, Nowell demonstrated a tendency to be fast and loose with his accounting methods.

“He had no concept of government accountancy,” Hendricks. “Anytime it came down to trusting either him or Phyllis Lombard, I went with Phyllis because he (Nowell) never knew what he was talking about.”

And from the start, Hendricks said, Nowell seemed determined to go his own way.

“His attitude seemed to be that there was no way he had to cooperate with the county,” said the former administrator.