County Attorney Robert Busselman has filed a petition on behalf of the State of Texas for the removal of County Treasurer Vi Malone from her elected position as county treasurer on the grounds of misconduct and/or incompetency.

Although the petition was filed on April 21, it still has not been signed by a presiding judge.

The Karnes Countywide has attempted to contact Busselman for comment on the petition but phone messages have not been returned and there has been no reply to E-mail messages sent to the county attorney.

Attorney Mick McKamie, who is representing the county treasurer in the matter, said that Malone would not receive service of process until a district judge signs the petition expressing an opinion that a citation should issue.

“It’s a special statute,” McKamie said. “A few of the rules under the statute are a little bit different from a typical civil lawsuit. Even though it is a civil case, it does require a judge to sign the order to serve the citation.”

The legal proceedings will not move forward without a judge’s signature, McKamie explained.

“I think that there is a provision for, after a period of delay, if it is not signed, it can be dismissed.”

McKamie said he reviewed the list of alleged acts of misconduct in the petition and he does not believe the things mentioned in the petition would justify removal of Malone from her position as county treasurer. Beyond that, he declined to comment further on the merits of the allegations lined out in the petition.

“We are still waiting to see what happens and then we will be prepared, if necessary, to defend Vi’s position,” McKamie said.

McKamie said it is rare for an elected official to be removed from office under the statute.

Allegations of misconduct in the citation include:

• Issuing a check without prior approval of Commissioners Court.

• Making errors on W-2 forms distributed to county employees and refusing to correct the errors

• Errors made in quarterly reports and delivered late.

• Incompetency by failure to properly maintain the duties and responsibilities of the Karnes County Treasury Office as treasurer

A letter from County Auditor Lajuana Kasprzyk is attached to the petition.

In the letter Kasprzyk states that her department has and continues to issue corrections to items prepared by the county treasurer’s department including but not limited to daily receipts, bi-weekly payrolls, quarterly state and payroll reports.

It goes on to say that the auditor’s office reconciles all bank accounts and alerts the County Treasurer’s department of corrections to deposits, transfers between accounts, failures to receipt monies, etc.