The Fayette County Board of Commissioners hasn’t made up its mind about starting its own countywide library system, a group of government officials was told Tuesday night.

County Commission Chairman Greg Dunn told the Association of Fayette County Governments that the idea is worth exploring, but the county would need the support of both Peachtree City and Tyrone. So far both municipalities have resisted the idea of breaking away from the Flint River Regional Library System.

“We’re not going to act independently on that,” Dunn said.

Recently it appeared the FRRLS board would force Fayette’s hand, as it voted several months ago to end its contract to provide library services to Fayette County. But earlier this week, the FRRLS board reversed its course and voted to continue providing those services, Dunn said.

Still, an investigation into FRRLS documents has turned up some questionable items, Dunn said, noting that FRRLS Director Walter Murphy was paying himself an additional $50,000 for accounting services. Murphy did not return a call from The Citizen seeking comment Thursday morning.

“The state library system has asked him to stop doing that, but he hasn’t,” Dunn said.

Murphy disputed Dunn’s allegation, saying he receives no extra pay — although he does perform accounting work as part of his job.

“I don’t know where they got that information,” Murphy said, adding that he has not heard from state library officials about it.

Tyrone Town Councilman Mike Smola said FRRLS was still needed to oversee construction of its new library facility on Commerce Drive. Dunn said the creation of a county-wide library system could be delayed until Tyrone’s library construction was well underway.

Dunn said if the county libraries decided to create a county-wide system, it would not be run by the county commission but instead by a library board consisting of appointees representing each individual library in the county. Though there had been discussion about Peachtree City and Tyrone creating its own library system, state library officials told county representatives that would not be possible, Dunn said.

The county commission had become concerned in recent months about paying $72,000 a year for FRRLS services while Peachtree City and Tyrone also paid into the system. The commission requested some information from FRRLS on revenues and expenditures under Georgia’s open records laws, but only the request for revenue information was complied with, Dunn said.

Murphy said FRRLS fully complied with Fayette County’s open records request, allowing a county attorney to sift through documents and make copies.

“I work for the library board, and everything is public,” Murphy said. He added that the FRRLS wanted to continue working with Fayette County to better serve its citizens and make sure the Tyrone library expansion is handled.

The FRRLS board wants to give Fayette officials time to decide whether or not they should form a county-wide library system, Murphy said.

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