News Photo by Crystal Nelson Probate Judge Erik Stone addresses the Presque Isle County Board of Commissioners on Friday to let them know he has terminated the county’s public guardian after he was made aware of possible financial mismanagement.

ROGERS CITY — Presque Isle County Probate Judge Erik Stone told the Presque Isle County Board of Commissioners on Friday he terminated the court’s public guardian last month, shortly after he was made aware of possible financial mismanagement.

The public guardian’s duties are to protect people who can’t protect themselves, such as elderly or disabled people who might be in a care home and don’t have family to care for them. Stone said he suspended the county’s public guardian on May 1, within 24 hours after he was provided with information indicating there was a real possibility funds were being mismanaged.

It wasn’t immediately clear whose money was being mismanaged, because Stone refused to comment after his statements to the board.

“We acted quickly, decisively to suspend the powers when we had evidence from a third party that there was possible financial mismanagement,” Stone told the board. “Having done that, on May 1, we did further investigation. On May 24, after being careful about the matter, having reviewed the matter further, I terminated the public guardian.”

Stone did not name the fired individual in his public comment, but Shiloh Furgeson is listed as the public guardian in the current Presque Isle County Directory, which was made available about two months ago. A phone number for Furgeson was not immediately available, and she did not respond to a Facebook message from from The News on Friday.

Stone said he moved the public guardian position in February from a “home-based position” to an “in-house position,” requiring the public guardian to work at the courthouse. While guardianship services are offered everywhere, Stone said Presque Isle County is one of the few counties in the state to have a public guardian

After moving the service in-house, “we, unfortunately, noticed some irregularities, some delays in reportings that caused us to look harder at the public guardian’s performance,” Stone told the county board. “This culminated, thankfully, with some information that was provided to the court that would indicate there was the possibility of some wrongdoing on behalf of the public guardian.”

The public guardian is responsible for the coordination of legal, medical, financial, social, and psychiatric services for those individuals, according to the county’s job description of the position. The public guardian oversees the management and protection of the ward’s assets. The job description states the current caseload is 40 to 50 clients.

Stone said they have engaged an outside auditing firm to confirm the work they’ve done to identify areas of concern and a report should be available in the next couple of weeks.

“There are investigations pending that I can’t comment on,” he told commissioners. “But we are now at the position where we can hire a new public guardian.”

Stone said he will conduct final interviews next week.

“This is a contract directly between the court and the public guardian,” he said. “I will enter into that contract, I will keep the board informed of the matter, and I will report to the chairman and let the chairman know what decision we made.”

Presque Isle County Sheriff Joe Brewbaker said “no comment” when asked if the Sheriff’s Office was investigating the case.

Crystal Nelson can be reached at 989-358-5687 or cnelson@thealpenanews.com.