Former board members of a Claiborne County agency the state has said was misusing public funds have begun to meet his demand for repayment within 30 days.

Dennis Daniels has paid $27,227 and Norma T. Lewis has paid $2,771 in response to a demand letter from state Auditor Phil Bryant saying that while they were members of the Claiborne County Human Resources Board they improperly paid themselves, said Jesse Bingham, director of investigations for Bryant’s office.

&#8220We’re expecting other former board members to repay portions of the money,” Bingham said. &#8220When we get the funds we will forward them to Claiborne County.”

The amounts paid by Daniels and Lewis satisfied Bryant’s demands from them as individuals, Bingham said. But represented only about 14 percent of the $220,832 demanded from seven former members of the board, one of whom is deceased.

The former board members appropriated for themselves in 2001 and 2002 portions of the money for themselves from a pass-through federal grant called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

&#8220The board members were paying themselves $1,000 per meeting and were making unauthorized donations to entities within Claiborne County,” Bryant said. &#8220Also, the resource board authorized giving Wal-Mart gift cards as presents to the board staff.”

The amount Bryant demanded for each board member included interest and investigative costs.

Bryant’s letter said Daniels owed $28,289, $1,063 less than he paid. The amount he paid was agreed to in negotiations with Bryant’s office, Bingham said.

The amount Lewis owed and repaid represented only per-meeting payments plus interest and investigative costs, Bingham said.

Daniels and Lewis made their repayments on Thursday and Friday respectively, Bingham said.

The board ran a nine-vehicle public-transportation system for county residents. It received TANF funds from the Mississippi Department of Human Services as part of a DHS initiative that has been discontinued, deputy administrator for programs Rickey Berry said. The initiative was one of several that distributed to Claiborne and other counties surplus funds the DHS had accumulated, Berry said.

The Claiborne County Human Resources Board continues to operate its public-transportation program through a grant from the Mississippi Department of Transportation and matching funds from the county government, Claiborne County administrator James Miller said.

The DHS receives about $96 million a year in TANF money and the bulk of that amount is distributed to about 8,000 Mississippians who qualify to receive direct benefits for their families. Some TANF recipients live in Claiborne County and they continue to receive benefits from the program through the DHS’ Port Gibson office, Berry said.

One of TANF’s goals is &#8220to end the dependency of needy parents on government benefits by promoting job-preparation, work and marriage,” the federal Department of Human Services says.

TANF benefits to individual families can include $200 monthly transportation stipends, Berry said.

Not reported as having paid back the money and the amounts Bryant said they owed were former board chairman Ronald Odom, $38.994; Doretha Rankin, $38,994; Roosevelt Hill (deceased), $38,483; Lee Ethel King, $38,994; and Mary J. Walls, $34,307.

After 30 days of nonpayment, the case will go to court for civil collection. No criminal charges are pending.