Payroll records show a second employee left Surry County’s Finance Department in April.

Angela Smoots, who had been a senior accountant under former Finance Director Steve Morris, was no longer on the county’s payroll as of April 10, according to records the Times obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request. Her departure appears to have come days after Morris left his role for unexplained reasons.

An April 10 draft of Surry County’s then-proposed 2025-26 budget listed Carol Swindell as interim finance director in place of Morris. A prior FOIA request by the Times for Finance Department payroll records spanning Jan. 1 through April 7 showed Morris was paid one cent for the last two weeks of March classified under the code “RGFTEX,” which refers to regular full-time exempt pay. Employees who are paid a fixed salary rather than an hourly wage are exempt from overtime pay requirements under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.

Morris’ net pay for March 16-31 was listed at $13,950.17, more than double the $5,603.19 he’d been paid for each prior pay period. Morris was no longer listed on the county’s payroll as of April 1.

Smoots, like Morris, was paid a higher net pay during her final pay period, at $5,484.17 for April 1-15, which is 52% more than the roughly $3,603 she’d been paid for each prior pay period.

The Times was unable to locate a current address or contact information for Morris or Smoots.

The two departures, prior to Swindell’s appointment, accounted for half of the Finance Department, which had four employees prior to April.

The two departures come amid a delay in completing an independent audit of the county’s 2023-24 fiscal year.

A county notice from Feb. 14 said an audit by the accounting firm Robinson, Farmer, Cox Associates had not been completed by Dec. 30. An April 30 notice states the audit by Robinson, Farmer, Cox “is currently pending” and that the estimated completion date is now July 1 to “accommodate staffing requirements to complete the audit.”

County Administrator Melissa Rollins did not immediately respond to a Times inquiry on whether completion was still on track and whether the delay was tied to the Finance Department turnover.

The Feb. 14 notice had stated Surry was “significantly delayed” in auditing its 2023-24 books “due to a conversion to a new financial software system.”

State law mandates an independent certified public accountant present a “detailed written report to the local governing body at a public session” by Dec. 31 for the prior fiscal year, and that every locality “contract for the performance of the annual audit not later than April 1 of each fiscal year.”

By issuing the revised notice advertising the July 1 completion date, “we are currently in compliance with the requirements of Virginia code,” County Attorney Lola Perkins said at the Board of Supervisors’ May 1 meeting.