A Sumter County official said Tuesday night that the county should consider pulling out of the Lake-Sumter Metropolitan Planning Organization due to the agency’s issues with the state.
“I would like a plan to move forward and detach from that group,” said Doug Gilpin, chairman of the Sumter County Board of Commissioners. “It’s way past the point of correction and a change of leadership was in order.”
Commissioner Don Burgess, who serves on the MPO’s executive committee, said pulling out of the agency would be a decision of the governor.
Gilpin’s comments came after Burgess reported that the executive committee met Monday to review the performance of director T.J. Fish. The committee decided to draft a set of guidelines for Fish to follow.
The decade-old Lake-Sumter MPO is the lead agency for regional transportation issues in Lake and Sumter counties and helps to allocate millions of federal transportation dollars each year.
Last year, an internal audit questioned appropriate use of funds and found that employees were estimating instead of tracking actual time spent on grant activities. Some invoices submitted by the agency have been rejected by the state.
Commissioner Garry Breeden said the board should draft a letter opposing the MPO executive committee action.
“They’ve had adequate time to fix the problem and they should make a change,” he said.
But Burgess said the board should wait on the letter until after an upcoming meeting between Gilpin, County Administrator Bradley Arnold and a state transportation official.
Gilpin said he plans to apologize to the transportation official for the MPO’s poor performance.
“It’s embarrassing to Sumter County,” he said. “We have a lot of big things going on. We can’t be drug down by sloppy work.”