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NEW MIAMI — Village council members have approved paying a past due construction debt and have hired a second person to work in the fiscal office.

Council members voted unanimously Monday night, Feb. 25, to cut the hours of the administrative clerk from full-time to 15 hours per week, and hired Belinda Ricketts to take over bookkeeping duties for the village.

Ricketts, Butler County's former director of fiscal services, will help straighten out the village's finances, in part, by using the accounting program that the state recommends, said Mayor Patti Hanes.

Ricketts will initially be paid $16 an hour for 30 hours per week. Those hours are expected to be cut back to 15 hours per week after the current interim fiscal officer, Jewel Collins, is trained on the accounting program.

Hanes said financial records have been in disarray since former Fiscal Officer Joe Ebbing was fired in January. She said they have recently learned that the village has three separate bank accounts, but it is unclear what the balances are in those accounts and to which departments the funds belong.

A measure that would have created another account specifically for construction debt was tabled for further discussion. Council members also tabled a move to hire the John Kirsch CPA Group, a certified public accounting firm, to reconstruct the financial records of the past two years.

The contract would provide a rate of $95 per hour for each person from the firm who works on the records. Before approving the contract, Hanes said they want a better idea of what it will cost.

Council members did approve spending more than $61,000 to cover the water department's debt service, which should have been paid by Dec. 31, 2007.

"It's a mess, but regardless, debt service has got to be paid," Hanes said.

Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2122 or rwilson@coxohio.com.