BEDFORD—The Lawrence County Council held a regular meeting Tuesday evening, Oct. 22, at the Lawrence County Courthouse. Judge Anah Hewetson-Gouty addressed the council members about the retirement accounts of over two dozen county employees who are missing funds.
According to Judge Hewetson-Gouty, county employees are offered a 457b plan, a type of retirement account through OneAmerica Financial Partners. For 29 employees of the county who participate in the 457b, including the Judge herself, a discovery was made in May of 2024 that impacted their accounts:
“From December 1, 2023, to August 1, 2024, all of the money taken from the paychecks did not go into our retirement accounts,” Judge Hewetson-Gouty said. Being a retirement account, the money invested into it would have grown over time, “so for that period, any growth we would have had from the market was also lost.”
She added that the county had sent the payments to One America, but the funds never appeared in the employee’s accounts. “They were sent to OneAmerica by the county, and no one’s saying anyone in the county, in the auditor’s office, or anyone did anything they shouldn’t have done, but for some reason, when they landed in OneAmerica, they did not go into our accounts.”
OneAmerica conducted a market analysis on the missing money to determine the amount each individual account needs to have deposited to be made right. Judge Hewetson-Gouty, after hearing the findings of that analysis, was denied any information by OneAmerica as to how the totals were finalized when she asked for their formulation. She then hired an independent expert to perform the same study on her account, and the results were quite different. The independent analysis calculated that the total amount lost was roughly four times what OneAmerica had stated.
She then asked that the county correct the situation for the affected employees by paying them the money that was deducted from their pay and the adjustment for lost gains, as it was lost through no fault of their own.
“OneAmerica never provided us a breakdown of how they arrived at these numbers and are refusing to do anything to help our employees,” said Council President Jeff Lytton, “Even though the county did absolutely nothing wrong, we do have an obligation to take care of our employees and try our best to make them right.”
All contributions made in 2024 that did not appear in the accounts have been paid back, leaving only the market loss owed to the employees for the year.
The issue was tabled until the next meeting due to the difference between the advertised amount to be paid back and the actual amount found by the independent analysis.
