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Where's da money?
We'd like to start a new space here on the site called "Where's da Money?" This will focus on how, when, where and why the town is spending the money....YOUR MONEY....and your tax dollars.
To start us off, we'd like to take you back to the beginning of this year, after the NYS Comptrollers office had paid a protracted visit to Town Hall, and "assessed" the town's "risk assessment'. At that time, there was a laundry list of recommendations for the town to improve their bookkeeping methods. Among some of the items that the state told our chief fiscal officer to fix were
-need more monitoring, more separation of duties, less self monitoring
-deposits and checks should be done by different people
-need a policy for vendor lists
-all monies should be kept in interest bearing accounts (they weren't?)
-there should be a filing cabinet to keep and secure assets
-need to reconcile transfer station coupons
-need manual and computer records
-need to use an over counter receipt book
-need to keep copies of taxes (duh)
-all accounts should be reconciled once a month
-Funds need to be established by numbered resolution
-need a purchase order system
-need to have a purchasing/ordering clerk
-a 1st quarter annual audit should be part of the annual report
and last but not least
-the town needs to have an official CPA for periodic monitoring and reconciliation of books.
Apparently the town chief fiscal officer, the honorable supervisor, has taken this very much to heart. In addition to the regular full time bookkeeper employed by the town, we understand that Carol Lohrman has been in town hall helping out part time. Also, the town has hired (without a formal bid process, we understand) Kemball and O'Brien CPA firm from Kingston to be our town accountants. The accountants work is being done at a rate of $85/hour, and in December '05 they spent 39 hours in town hall plus an additional 39 hours on reconciling fund balances for a total of 102.5 hours at a cost of $9024. You can click here to see copies of these invoices
CPA Invoices Dec05
In January 06, the CPA firm billed the town another 101.5 hours for $8.852, and another 30.25 hours in February at $2,653. The total billings for March and April of '06 are almost $2,400. Here are these invoices:
CPA Invoices Jan 06
CPA Invoices Feb 06
CPA Invoices March & April06
This brings the total cost to the town for five months to over $24,400 for a CPA firm, in addition to one full time and one part time bookkeepers. Please keep in mind that the total budgeted for this for the entire FISCAL YEAR is only $15K, so we're wondering where the money will be coming from? Keep watching this space for more interesting tidbits about where your money is evaporating to!
Spending Like Crazy-Supervisor's Department
The next charts that we want to show you are graphic summaries of spending over the last ten years in town hall, in different categories. In each category, we've show the amount that was adopted for that year in the budget, and also the actual amount that was spent by the town. The first category that we want to show is "Supervisor". This includes costs connected to the salaries of the supervisor, any bookkeepers or secretaries to the supervisor, and any office expenses, mileage, etc. The key points to remember as you look at this category are 1)the amount budgeted here has more than doubled from ten years ago and 2) since the democrats took control of the town board and Carl Zatz has been supervisor, the actual amount spent in each of the last two years is SIGNIFICANTLY OVER the amount originally budgeted for these categories.
Supervisor Category Spending History
Spending Like Crazy-Attorney's Get their Cut
The amount that the town has spent for attorney's fees has increased from just over $12,000 in 1996, to almost $78,000 in 2005. Additionally, last year the adopted budget was $55,750, and actual spending was more that $23,000 over the budgeted amount. You can click here to see a comparison chart
Attorney Spending History Chart
Spending Like Crazy-Buildings
The amount that the town has spent for it's buildings continues to soar, in spite of the meeting room being completed for the last year and a half, at least to where it's usable. Even though the town doesn't have to rent out meeting space any more, we are still forking over big bucks for rent for town offices, almost a half year into the second term of the democratic admnistration. This is our tax dollars being spent on rent every month when we should have a town hall building paid for! You can click here to see a comparison chart for the last 10 years
Buildings Spending History Chart
Spending Like Crazy-ECC
The Environmental Conservation Committee (ECC) has historically played an advisory role for the town. It is supposed to be a group of appointed townspeople who could research and report on various environmental issues that might impact the town. Other than attending a conference or course, the committee has never required major funding from the town. However, the current administration has determined that open space consultants need to be hired, at considerable expense in the tens of thousands of dollars, for the people in Gardiner to know where our open space is. Moreover, these experts from out of Gardiner, will tell us what must be done with our land! These consultants will continue to have their hands in the pockets of Gardiner taxpayers as long as our administration invites them to do so. You can click here to see a comparison chart for the last 10 years.
Environmental Conservation Committee Spending History Chart
Spending Like Crazy-Home & Community Service
This is a category that encompasses many of the spending groups already discussed. In both 2004 and 2005 the spending in this category has been over the amounts approved and adopted at budget time, and last year it was about 30% over the approved spending amount. The town board may argue that they approved this extravagent spending, but it was after the fact. You can click here to see a comparison chart for the last 10 years.
Home & Community Service Spending History Chart
Spending Like Crazy-Planning Board and Master Plan
These two categories need to be looked at in combination, as the town boards over the last two years have blurred the actual consultant spending between the two. Joel Russell, the planning consultant hired to do both the master plan and the zoning revisions, has been clocking up some real hours over the last two years. Although these figures also include spending for the planning board, the bulk of this money is going to the outside consultant. In 2004 and 2005 total, these two catetories were budgeted to spend about $100,000, but ended up with actual expenditures of over $200,000. Thats $200,000. This is not including what is currently being spent this year for planning/zoning consultant Joel Russell to work on the revisions to the AR 80 zoning. Nice work if you can get it. You can click here to see a comparison chart for the last 10 years.
Planning Board Spending History Chart
Master Plan Research Spending History Chart
General Fund Spending History Chart
Spending Like Crazy-Open Space and Zoning Restrictions
Between the beginning of 2005 and through May of 2006 total spending for consultants for Zoning Revisions (Joel Russell, @ $160/hour) and Open Space Planning consultation (Behan Associates), is almost $75,000. THAT'S $75,000 OF OUR TAX MONEY! Shameful.
Behan Invoice for 51 thousand tax dollars
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