An investigation into the fee accounting practices of Warren County Circuit Clerk Shelly Ashley-Palmertree is expected to be resolved soon, Mississippi state auditor Stacey Pickering said Tuesday, following a speech at a meeting of the Vicksburg Kiwanis club.

Without commenting on specifics of the investigation, Pickering said he is hopeful there will be movement in the case in the near future.

“I can’t discuss the timeline of any ongoing investigation,” said Pickering, in Vicksburg to address a lunch meeting of the civic club. “There are often a lot of other parties involved, and it wouldn’t be proper.”

“It’s always hard to tell about specific time frames but we’re wrapping things up on our end and hopefully we are at a point where we can make some recommendations and report back to the county,” Lisa Shoemaker, communications director for Pickering, said in a telephone interview.

Ashley-Palmertree could not be reached.

Certain accounting methods in her office have been cited by independent auditors examining the county’s books going back at least to 2006.

The Vicksburg Certified Public Accounting firm Bridgers and Company, hired by the Board of Supervisors to complete the audits for the last four years, has said that Ashley-Palmertree should repay the county a total of more than $340,000.

Ashley-Palmertree has disputed the CPA’s opinion and said another independent auditor could interpret rules governing circuit clerk income differently.

She also said she has worked with Pickering’s office to resolve issues and has not been instructed by the state auditor to correct her accounting methods.

In Warren County, the circuit clerk’s office is operated like a business, with the clerk collecting fees for various services — such as lawsuit filing fees, marriage fees, statutory payments from the county based on the number of days court is in session — and paying expenses such as payroll out of those fees.

By state law, her personal income is capped at $90,000, with certain exceptions, and anything above that is to be turned over to the county. The independent audits claim she improperly accounted for fees and her income exceeded the $90,000 cap.

Pickering, a resident of Laurel, is running unopposed for a second term at the head of the Mississippi Office of the State Auditor. He told Kiwanians his office has 174 active cases under investigation, including some that extend into Georgia, Florida and Alabama.

Since taking office, he has recovered about $8 million in improperly managed, misused or embezzled public funds, he said.

His office also includes a staff of attorneys and CPAs who train public officials, including mayors, clerks, supervisors and finance officials in municipalities and schools. The staff spent more than 400 hours training and answered more than 2,000 questions from local officials, Pickering said.

“We’re not in the ‘gotcha’ business,” he said. “We’re about the responsibility business.”

Ashley-Palmertree, a Democrat running for a fourth term, faces opposition on the Nov. 8 ballot from Republican David Sharp and independents Jan Hyland Daigre and Robert Terry. Daigre was a visitor at the Kiwanis luncheon.