By Jessica Dillon
After a special closed session meeting on March 30, members of Martinsville City Council unanimously approved a motion authorizing the city attorney, Sands Anderson, and City Manager Rob Fincher to “prepare the report from the forensic audit for council to consider to be released at the next meeting.”
Currently, the next meeting is April 14.
The council agreed by consent to add a closed session to that meeting as well to continue addressing the workplace investigation.
“We’re going to prepare the forensic audit for release,” said Vice Mayor Kathy Lawson. Lawson said that Monday was a “good day.”
Council member Aaron Rawls, who has said that both the forensic audit and workplace investigation should be made public, attributed the change to council member Gene Teague, who is helpful to the council.
“I just want to get to the right outcome,” said Rawls. “I always knew we were going to get to this point one way or another. I’m relieved to have gotten there the right way, which was by a majority vote of council.”
During a March 23 meeting, the council approved the second reading of the city’s opioid abatement fund plan and heard from Fincher about sweeping changes to the city’s purchasing policies.
The council adopted the measure after hearing a presentation from Virginia Harm Reduction about how the funds would be used and how the organization operates. A large crowd of supporters attended the meeting.
Rawls said he spent the Saturday before the meeting with Virginia Harm Reduction, and questioned whether expanding services could create additional problems.
“If we expand these things too much, do we start attracting more, and more, and more bad actors,” Rawls asked.
Teague said the organization does not simply hand out supplies.
“You’re not just handing them out like candy. There’s a whole case management process,” Teague said.
Fincher also outlined changes to the city’s financial procedures, including eliminating city purchase cards.
“We had put some new policies in place regarding things such as purchase cards and travel training,” Fincher said. “As an interim, I tried to do better things, but that was just a Band-Aid.”
Fincher said the city is overhauling its purchasing policies to add more oversight and accountability.
“We’re doing a radical reset of our purchasing policies. That includes things, and we’ve already implemented quite a bit of it, like every invoice has to be reviewed by the chief financial officer, all financial journal entries are then also signed by the CFO and sometimes the city manager. All transfers are approved by the city manager, the CFO, and then anything that involves transferring the funds from one line to another is approved by City Council,” he said.
The city also has lowered spending limits and now requires city manager approval for purchase orders that previously could be approved by a single employee.
“We have reduced purchase limits requiring city manager approval on purchase orders that, before, were automatically approved with only one individual. It really didn’t have accountability there,” Fincher said.
Fincher said he hopes the new policies will help restore public confidence.
“It’s not only ensuring the public trust, but it’s establishing guardrails to make certain that our city can continue forward and could be the great organization that we are,” he said.
The council also heard updates from the Planning Commission and the Virginia 250 Committee.
Council members held public hearings and considered first readings of:
Appropriations Ordinance 2026-6, which would reappropriate prior-year funds.
Appropriations Ordinance 2026-7 regarding fire programs.
Appropriations Ordinance 2026-8 regarding First Ellsworth.
In other business, council recognized April as Child Abuse Prevention Month and Bee City Month in Martinsville.
