Coker asserts authority over county finances

Whitman County Auditor Eunice Coker blames county commissioners for allowing the county’s finance department to devolve to the point it had to be dismantled.

“Finance got like that because they have been under the county commissioners,” she told commissioners Pat O’Neill and Greg Partch during a workshop session Monday.

Commissioners put too many conflicting tasks on the department, she said, without providing the resources needed to get the job done.

Because of that, Coker told O’Neill and Partch she was taking over the finance department and putting it under her leadership.

Commissioner Mich...