Ward County commissioners agreed Tuesday to spend up to $15,000 on a forensic audit of American Recovery Act dollars granted to Project BEE for Broadway Circle.

Commission Chairman John Fjeldahl said the auditing firm, Widmar Roel , hopes to complete the audit and provide recommendations fairly quickly. Financial concerns at Project BEE were exposed when a former director left in December, but the organization has been working to get its fiscal matters in order and has indicated it will cooperate with a county audit.

The commission also will be contacting other entities that were approved for ARPA funds but have not yet committed those funds to their proposed projects. The commission wants to clarify the status of the projects because the federal dollars must be committed to active projects by the end of the year. If grantees aren’t able to commit or no longer need the funds, the commission can reallocate the money to different projects.