The convicted vote buyer, former Bath County Judge-Executive Walter Shrout, in addition to being a crook, was a lousy county CEO too.
More on this under-reported story from the Lexington Herald Leader.
In the same year investigators found rampant vote-buying in Bath County, the county government racked up a deficit of close to $600,000 and increased spending on road paving projects by two-thirds. In a scathing audit of Bath County finances released yesterday, State Auditor Crit Luallen said Bath County officials were repeatedly warned by the state that they were overspending but continued to do so.
The audit, released four days after Bath County Judge-Executive Walter Shrout was convicted on vote-buying-related charges stemming from the May primary, said the county increased its road budget by 67 percent over the previous year. In addition to the $276,400 shortage in the road fund, the audit noted a deficit of $207,798 in the general fund and $106,707 in the jail fund. Shrout is one of 12 Bath County residents to be indicted on vote-buying-related charges.
Shrout blamed much of the county's money crunch on an increase in expenses including insurance, Social Security and jail costs. But the audit, which looked at the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2005, and ending June 30, 2006, found that spending on road paving grew more than spending from the city's operating budget or the jail fund. The increase in spending from the road fund was "mainly due to discretionary blacktop expenditures," the audit said. The audit covered the period leading up to the May primary, in which Shrout and others faced stiff competition.
Shrout resigned his position Monday and could not be reached for comment. In the audit, Shrout said the road fund deficit has been repaid and that parts of the general fund and jail fund had also been partly repaid.
As is the paper's wont, party affiliation was left out of the article. Shrout is a Democrat.
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Democrats 
crime 
corruption 
vote fraud 
Kentucky
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