The state auditor is calling out an elected official from northeast Nebraska for allegedly using Menards store rebates earned through county purchases for his own benefit.

Questionable buys ranged from a $1 prank whoopee cushion to a $94 load of lumber.

According to an eight-page report issued Tuesday by Nebraska State Auditor Mike Foley and addressed to the Wayne County Board of Commissioners, the auditor’s office had fielded concerns that Commissioner Dean Burbach had redeemed Menards rebates accumulated with county funds.

Wayne County maintains a charge account with Menards to buy general supplies and other items. The store frequently offers 11 percent rebates on purchases. Information on the rebate is included on the original transaction receipt, and to redeem it, someone fills out a form and mails it along with the rebate section of the original transaction receipt to Menards.

Rebate abuse beyond Wayne

The state auditing team focused on a three-month period last summer, gleaning information through sources such as a “Rebates International” website. According to the letter, findings showed that rebates totaling about $600 were earned from purchases made on the county’s charge account and later were redeemed under Burbach’s name and home address.

Foley said the apparent misuse of Menards rebates intended for public and not personal gain has been a recurring theme in some other state reviews of governmental bodies beyond Wayne County.

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“Increasingly we’re finding Menards rebate coupons being abused,” Foley told the Nebraska Examiner. “Many, many instances in just the last year or so.”

Foley’s team asked Burbach about the situation earlier this month. According to the auditor’s report, the commissioner said he “did not recall redeeming in his name any rebates earned from the expenditure of county funds.”

The letter called that response “implausible” and went on to state that “apparent misuse of county property and the seemingly misleading information provided to the APA give rise to the possibility of serious statutory concerns.”

Findings were forwarded to the Nebraska Attorney General, Wayne County Attorney and Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission for review.

But when reached by the Examiner, Burbach, a commissioner for 16 years, called the purchases a mistake and said he intended to pay back the county.

“It’s a mistake on my part,” he said. “It shouldn’t have happened.”

County lacked policy

Representatives of Wayne County government — which covers about 9,500 residents in an area named after Revolutionary War hero Anthony Wayne — told the audit team that the county had no procedures for tracking rebates earned on county purchases, nor did it have a formal policy for handling such rebates.

Foley’s letter repeated language similar to his office’s other recent reports — that good internal controls require rebates received from vendors through county purchases to be tracked properly and treated as county property to be used only for appropriate public purposes.

Wayne County, in a response included in the auditor report, said it agreed. Moreover, it mentioned questionable purchases beyond those detailed in the report. Among them: Snickers bars, grape jam, Hot Tamales and a wind-up robot toy.

“The county clerk and county attorney are in the process of creating a policy to be included in the employee handbook,” said the county’s written response.