McKay-led county government check for five bucks made out to citizen bounced

ST. MARY'S TODAY

LEONARDTOWN --- "I am commissioner by day and bad dog
by night," jokes Larry Jarboe.
But Tuesday he was miffed that a refund check sent to
one of his constituents  for $5 had rebounded and
sounded it off at the St. Mary's Commissioners time during the
St. Mary's Board of County Commissioners meeting on Tuesday.
Jarboe is a member of of the band named Adinah & The
Bad Dogs that plays at the Chief's Bar, and one the
patrons came there this past weekend waving the check that Commissioner
President Tommy McKay had signed and was sent to his wife for some
kind of a refund.
"Mr. Duke, Mary Duke's husband came to me to complain
about the situation," Jarboe said.
The bank then charged them an additional $10 for
depositing a check that bounced, he said.
A secretary who works at McKay's commissioner office came running into the board meeting on Tuesday to explain it wasn't a case of insufficient funds that the check bounced.
"It's the Bank of America," she said. "It had something to do with their machine."
Jarboe said his constituent was non-plussed as he came into the Tall Timbers bar waving the check asking "What's the story here."
The check was issued to Mary Duke. "It was a refund check of some kind," Said McKay associate.
The county staffer said it was a refund check of some kind in which
the Bank of America made an error.
Jarboe regretted the days of the people-friendly banks were gone, saying had it been the First National Bank of Maryland such an ugly incident would never have
happened.
Elaine Kramer, the county finance director, said the lapse was in no way any error on the part of the county. She said the check wasn't cleared, because of
some routing issues.
As if everyone hadn't heard that excuse before, that the problem wasn't the ability of the county to add up its funds, but instead was a "bank error".
McKay, an impressive financial scion of the local grocery chain, immediately requested county administrator George Forrest to inquire from Elaine Kramer what had gone wrong.
She said it was possible that the check might have been taken to a grocery store instead of a bank, but said she could not vouch on that.  At least, one can assume that there would have been one local grocery store which would have seen the wisdom in simply cashing the check and collecting the funds from the county.
County officials seemed eager on Tuesday to reassure the public that no other county checks would bounce.   Perhaps their confidence stemmed from record tax collections coming from record high tax assessments.



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