CLAYTON — Clayton’s administration is allowed to use sales tax proceeds to pay for ditch maintenance, but it cannot use those revenues to fund the annual town audit, the Attorney General says.

After being accused of illegally using public funds during the recent election cycle in which he was ousted, Clayton Mayor Rydell Turner solicited an opinion of the Attorney General about how the town could use its portion of the 1.5 percent sales tax enacted by voters.

Louisiana Assistant Attorney General John C. Morris IV issued an opinion on usage of the 1.5 percent sales tax, which was approved by voters on Oct. 15, 2015. According the proposition, 95 percent of the proceeds are to be used for “constructing, hard surfacing, improving and/or maintaining public roads and streets in the district, including acquiring, maintaining and operating equipment for such purposes and providing incidental drainage.”

Morris wrote that sales and use tax proceeds must be used solely for the purposes approved by the voters.

In the instance of using the funds to mow ditches, Morris wrote that if the “Town determines its maintenance and mowing activities provide incidental drainage, then the town is justified in using proceeds from the district’s sales and use tax for such activities.”

The language submitted to voters, however, does not identify potential to use the sales tax funds to pay an accounting firm to conduct the town audit.

Turner said mowing and cleaning the ditches most certainly helps with drainage.

“If the ditches were left alone, there would be water all over the place when it rains,” he said. “There were a lot of lies about us using this money illegally to clean ditches, so I thought this opinion was needed to keep people from lying.

“Why anyone would get mad about us cleaning the town up, I will never understand.”

Regarding the audit, Turner said the town had trouble paying the auditor, which was why the report missed the state’s deadline. The town has since found alternative funding sources for the audit.

“We got that taken care of,” he said. “Sometimes small towns have a hard time paying all of these bills. We wanted to seek the Attorney General’s opinion to see if we could use these funds for that.”

Government agencies are required to have an independent audit done of the year’s budget.

Josephine Taylor Washington is the mayor-elect of Clayton and will take the oath of office July 1.