Opinion ID: 1857262
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Travel Advances.

Text: The Auditor took exception to two travel advances given to Mayor Nichols, one for $500.00 and one for $300.00. The advance of $300.00 was for a trip taken to research a sewer project the city was undertaking. The $500.00 advance was for a Mississippi Municipal Association Convention. Nichols testified that he turned in documentation for the trips, but the vouchers could not be found. The basis for the exceptions taken by the Auditor was a lack of supporting documentation. The Auditor states that the city issued both warrants to the Mayor before the approval of the claim, without proper documentation and itemization as required by Mississippi Code Annotated § 25-3-41. Prior to 1990 travel advances were not authorized by this section of the Mississippi Code. A review of Mississippi Code Annotated § 25-3-41, as it existed prior to July 1, 1990, does not include a provision which allows an employee to receive a travel advance. However, for the first time the 1990 amendment authorized a city officer or employee to receive funds prior to travel. Also, as above, there was no prior approval since there was no entry on the city's official minutes and, as stated previously, [a] county board of supervisors approves the use of county funds collected from its community taxes and used for the betterment of their community. As such, our case precedent requires the entry of an order by the board of supervisors upon their minute book when sitting together for the purpose of making expenditures... . Butler v. Board of Supervisors for Hinds County, 659 So.2d 578, 579 (Miss. 1995). We also think it was error for the court to permit individual members of the board of supervisors to testify what the board did, and what the board understood, and what the board had authorized to be done in the premises. A board of supervisors can act only as a body, and its act must be evidenced by an entry on its minutes. The minutes of the board of supervisors are the sole and exclusive evidence of what the board did. The individuals composing the board cannot act for the county, nor officially in reference to the county's business, except as authorized by law, and the minutes of the board of supervisors must the repository and the evidence of their official acts. Smith v. Board of Supervisors of Tallahatchie County, 124 Miss. 36, 41, 86 So. 707, 709 (1920). Since there was no authority to receive a travel advance in 1985 or 1989, and there is no record appropriately noted on the minutes, the Auditor's exception to these amounts was proper.