An independent audit will begin this week of the nearly $138,000 turned over by Warren County Circuit Clerk Shelly Ashley-Palmertree.

Ashley-Palmertree transferred the money Feb. 16 into an escrow account under control of the county and, as also ordered, hired an independent accountant to allocate payments and perform an audit of the funds.

State Auditor Stacey Pickering’s office ordered Ashley-Palmertree in September to return the money, but she said she was waiting on further directions before the transfer could take place.

“I had to follow their directions and not do anything until I had a directive from them,” she said Monday. “The county could not accept the money until they knew what to do with it.”

Pickering’s office said Ashley-Palmertree was given plenty of direction to transfer the money before the September order.

“We told her what had to be done,” said Pickering’s spokeswoman, Lisa Shoemaker. “It’s pretty clear that she already had her instructions to transfer the money back in the fall.

“She was waiting on us for a certain period of time but that was before September,” Shoemaker said.

David Richardson, who operates a certified public accounting firm in Tallulah, was hired by Ashley-Palmertree. Richardson said he met with her Wednesday to accept records related to the funds. He said he expects to begin his analysis this week when Ashley-Palmertree turns over additional records, though he declined to elaborate. Ashley-Palmertree said she would take the records to Richardson as soon as her schedule allows.

“I discussed it with the state auditor as to what needed to be done and I had some deadlines that I had to meet and now I’m ready to work on it,” Richardson said.

As part of his analysis, Richardson will decide the recipients of $127,856.46 in criminal fees and $10,138.28 in funds from a civil account. The state and county are expected to split the criminal fees, while the recipients of the civil fund are yet unknown.

“I haven’t done any investigation on that so I couldn’t address it,” Richardson said.

Ashley-Palmertree said she also didn’t know whom the money belonged to or whether it came from civil judgments or fees.

“That’s what the CPA is going to determine,” she said.

Richardson declined to comment on specifics of the audit process and said he would release a report once he has presented his findings to Pickering’s office.

“I would rather give my findings direct to the state auditor first,” he said.

Neither Richardson nor Ashley-Palmertree offered a time frame for the completion of the analysis.

“He said he would get it done as quickly as possible,” Ashley-Palmertree said.

In September, Pickering’s office ordered Ashley-Palmertree to repay $199,588 representing amounts she and her father, Larry Ashley, whom she succeeded in office in 2004, withdrew from criminal and civil court statutory fee accounts in excess of what state law allows. Earlier this month the number was reduced to the nearly $138,000 because part of the money in question was generated during Larry Ashley’s administration, Shoemaker said.

“It’s always been that amount. It was never any higher than that,” Ashley-Palmertree said. “I don’t know where that higher figure came from, but it’s always been that $138,000 ballpark.”

While the money was under her control, it remained in an escrow account where it remained untouched since 2005, she said.

“Absolutely not, there was no wrongdoing,” she said.

In addition to the money transferred Feb. 16, at least $340,000 remains in dispute in the state auditor’s review of fee accounting practices in the circuit clerk’s office. The records being reviewed date to at least 2006 and might be older, Richardson said.

Ashley-Palmertree declined to comment on the $340,000, which stems from Bridgers & Company audits that also repeatedly cited her for listing payments to subcontractors without supporting documentation.

“I’m not going to comment on that at this point because it’s still in dispute,” Ashley-Palmertree said.

With certain exceptions, state law caps a circuit clerk’s annual salary at $90,000. County audits have also repeatedly cited Ashley-Palmertree for collecting fees — often tens of thousands of dollars — in excess of the limit.

Ashley-Palmertree was elected to a third four-year term in November with 49.7 percent of the popular vote in a four-way race.