JACKSON – The matter of whether Claiborne County officials will be asked to personally repay upward of $250,000 for a new county phone system is under study by state auditors, who are not ready to say what they plan to do.

Officials with the Investigative Division of Mississippi Auditor Phil Bryant’s office were to meet Tuesday with Lorman resident James Scott, who approached them as &#8220a concerned citizen.”

Though the meeting was canceled, spokesman Ross Aldridge said, the case was an active investigation.

&#8220I can’t comment on active investigations,” Aldridge said. He added inquiries in initial stages are delicate and are successful without &#8220interference” from outside sources.

Scott did not immediately return telephone calls.

In Mississippi, when public officials spend public money without following legal channels, they are deemed to have been acting in their personal capacity, not their official capacity. That can result in an order to repay misspent funds.

State Department of Audit employees have no authority to prosecute cases in criminal actions. They can only forward their findings to the state Attorney General’s Office, which has discretion on whether to pursue charges.

In a letter supplied in January with records obtained by The Vicksburg Post through a formal request, attorney Mike Espy, interim attorney for the Claiborne County Board of Supervisors, says there were no bids taken by the board nor was there required documentation in board minutes.

Instead, County Administrator James Miller signed off on agreements and payments to vendors without being authorized to do so by Claiborne County supervisors, who employ him, Espy said.

Espy said Miller signed a contract &#8220without due authority but with good intent” with NetComp for the purchase and installation of phone and computer systems.

Questions arose initially because the new, highly complex phone system was unreliable.

Scott has written letters questioning why state officials are not enacting, enclosing copies of Vicksburg Post news articles.

Miller told the newspaper that documents bearing his signature were signed without supervisors’ approval, but not with any criminal intent and nothing had been stolen.

The phone system, said to upgrade emergency preparedness, was manufactured by Cisco. It was installed by NetComp in 2005 and financed by CitiCapital. The expense included paying off a contract with the vendor then providing phone service.

A Vicksburg firm, Delta Communications, had acted as a systems technician to manage the system, a result of a relationship with the county began in 2004 when plans to add a second reactor to Grand Gulf Nuclear Power Station were in their early stages.

Records showed no signed contract between the county and Delta Communications. The county has since hired the telecommunications division of Alcorn State University to keep the system running.