By Rusty Marks
The Charleston Gazette
INSTITUTE, S.C. — Members of the Kanawha County Commission will start requiring that volunteer fire departments submit federal tax forms before giving them grant funds.
County officials recently asked for an audit of the Institute Volunteer Fire Department after a former employee allegedly embezzled more than $20,000 in state and county money.
Officials at the Chesapeake Volunteer Fire Department also agreed to an audit recently.
County commissioners Kent Carper, Dave Hardy and Hoppy Shores considered making all county fire departments submit to audits if asked by county officials before allowing them to apply for public safety grant funds. But Hardy, who first brought up the idea, decided the audits might cost too much money.
Instead, county officials decided to have fire departments submit federal 990 tax forms as a condition of receiving grant money. County officials pass out more than $300,000 a year in public safety grants to the county’s more than 20 volunteer and paid fire departments. Most fire departments are required to fill out 990 tax forms anyway.
Also Thursday, commissioners agreed to help Nitro business owners get signs on Interstate 64 changed to tell motorists they can get to Nitro by way of W.Va. 25. Highways officials plan to close the Nitro-St. Albans bridge in 2013 for more than a year to put a new deck on it.
“There’s never a good time to close a bridge,” said Sandra Saunders, who runs Brandywine Flea Market in Nitro and works for Nitro city government.
Nitro business owners expect to lose business when the bridge is closed.
Saunders and other local business owners want highways officials to change road signs along Interstate 64 at the Institute exit, adding that the exit can also be used to get to Nitro.
“We who live in the area know it,” she said, “But even people who live in Charleston don’t realize you can get off at Institute and go to Nitro.”
County commissioners said they would talk to highways officials to help get the road signs changed.
Copyright 2011 Charleston Newspapers