Soil & water conservation district to pay state $300,000 for unauthorized approvals

A group responsible for managing soil and water conservation efforts in Appomattox incorrectly authorized state payments for farming practices to reduce pollution entering waterways, an investigation found, and will have to pay back about $300,000 to the commonwealth.

The Virginia Soil & Water Conservation Board voted Wednesday to direct the Robert E. Lee Soil and Water Conservation District, based in the Appomattox area, to make the payment after a former employee, John Wooldridge, approved the state funds to be used for several water- and soil-saving practices without having the authority to do so.

“We were blindsided,” said Cindy Miller, office administrator at the district, in explaining that her colleagues didn’t know about Wooldridge’s actions.

The issue was discovered by Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation staff, who oversee the administering of the state funds doled out through the local soil and water conservation districts. The districts are responsible for maintaining the health of waterways throughout the state.

The state funds are from the Virginia Agricultural Cost Share Program and are used to pay for some of the agricultural best management practices, or BMPS, that farmers and others use to conserve water and soil, such as fencing livestock out of streams and planting cover crops to catch nutrients before they enter streams and rivers.

In November, a DCR staff member noticed the district had approved funding after Wooldridge, the former employee, signed off on about $2.1 million in funding for about 20 projects, despite losing his Engineering Job Approval Authority to do so in January 2023. The district is paying back the amount it had actually disbursed for three projects totaling $260,180.09, as well as  $33,823.41 it used in associated technical assistance with the funding.

The district could be on the hook for seven other projects that had engineering plans modified by the state’s engineering team if they aren’t built in accordance with cost-share program guidelines. If they are, they can be paid with the district’s cost-share allocation funds. The remaining projects that are not yet under construction will have to have engineering plans designed and approved by the state, or with help from other districts.

After discovering the improper payments, DCR staff then spent about 277 hours — the equivalent of about seven 40 hour work weeks — investigating the operations at the district. That involved contacting farmers to verify receipts for payment of the work. 

“The files are a mess,” said Christine Watlington, DCR policy and district services manager. “I don’t think anybody was quite prepared for what we found when we got there.”

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Among several other steps to secure financial security, the district will need to pay the funds back with about $1.4 million from its reserves, which include money they are allowed to retain from previous technical assistance allocations they received from the state but hadn’t distributed. The district is not allowed to use additional cost share funding for the repayment.

“We are in a recovery mode,” said Doug Perow, treasurer at the district, at the Wednesday meeting. 

The district has established a committee to review cost share projects going forward. The Soil and Water Conservation Board will come back in April and May to provide further guidance to the remaining employees.

The scrutiny of the district coincides with the state fully funding the cost share programs, after neglecting to do so in recent years, while also trying to achieve pollution reduction goals to clean up the Chesapeake Bay. The disbursement of funds with the program that is now flush with money has been a focus of environmental and farming groups, as well as state and federal partners.

DCR also has three vacancies in employee positions that oversee the cost-share program. The proposed budget that is tied up between negotiations with Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin and the Democratic legislature includes funding for two more positions. 

“Our budget has remained relatively flat,” said James Martin, soil and water conservation director with DCR. “We designed our engineering capacity at the department based on that distributed model of engineering job approval authority at the districts.”

Meanwhile, people who had interviewed for the positions have now taken other jobs with better salaries.

The staffing shortfalls prompted board member Jay Ford, Virginia policy director for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, to suggest the board draft and approve a letter at its next meeting in April to send to Senate and House budget leaders, asking for more funds for staffing needs at DCR.

“That’s kind of where the rubber meets the road,” said Ford.