State questions Horse Park’s purchases

State Finance Secretary William Landrum cut the authority of the Kentucky Horse Park on Thursday to make non-construction, small purchases from $20,000 to $1,000 amid questions about the park’s $500,000 business with a vendor that doesn’t have a contract with the park.

Senate Majority Leader Damon Thayer, R-Georgetown, said Landrum’s action “justifies even more” his bill to reorganize the park’s governing board.

The Senate was scheduled to vote Thursday on Thayer’s Senate Bill 200, but Thayer said he postponed that vote so he could review Landrum’s letter. The Senate vote on the bill likely will take place early next week, Thayer said.

Efforts to reach Horse Park executive director Jamie Link for comment were not successful.

Thayer has said he lacks confidence in Link, Jane Beshear, former Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear’s wife whom he appointed to the park commission before leaving office in December; and commission chairwoman Alston Kerr, a friend of Jane Beshear. Thayer, whose district includes 200 acres of the 1,224-acre park in northern Fayette County, said he started hearing complaints about the park 18 months ago.

In a two-page letter to Link, Landrum noted a March 2015 audit of the park that found several financial irregularities, ranging from improper procurement procedures to inadequate management controls. It covered July 1, 2010, through June 30, 2014.

Link told a Senate committee this week that he started his job at the park in November 2014. He had been deputy chief of staff for Gov. Beshear, who was succeeded in December by Republican Matt Bevin.

Landrum told Link that his cabinet’s Office of Procurement Services recently discovered more than $500,000 worth of purchases by the park since the March 2015 audit from a vendor that does not have a contract with the park.

“Moreover, the authority cited as justification for these purchases in the Commonwealth’s procurement management system appears to be invalid, resulting in these payments circumventing the appropriate procurement processes,” said Landrum in his letter. Landrum did not identify the vendor in question.

Landrum said he is cutting the park’s small purchase authority until it demonstrates that adequate procurement processes have been implemented and are being followed and that sufficient management controls are in place.

This story was originally published February 25, 2016 at 6:06 PM with the headline "State questions Horse Park’s purchases."