[RP TownTalk] Budget and other financial issues

Thu May 19 03:32:08 UTC 2016

Mayor Archer -

As someone with over $2mil invested in town real estate, I would like some direct and clear answers that I will delineate at the end of this post.

In your 4/28 post you said "Incidentally the 2015 audit we received last month revealed NO warnings or major concerns."  This statement is misleading at best.  In looking at the audit please note:

1)      Due to required compliance with regulatory accounting standards our Net Position was restated from $6,063,388 to $4,758,742, a decrease of $1,304,646.  As Page 4 says "increases or decreases in the Town's net position are one indicator of whether its financial health is improving or deteriorating."

2)      The net position decreased further at the end of 2015 to $4,697,173

3)      Note 2 (Compliance and Accountability) notes that our budget deviates from GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) by using surplus as a budgeted revenue requiring a reconciliation of what our budget would look like under GAAP standards.

4)      Note 15 in 2014 required a restatement of $1,664,957 revenue under expenditures (shortage) and $256,687 in 2015 due to GAAP reconciliations

5)      Note 9 indicated an unfunded pension liability of $2,054,143 (assumed only 5% salary growth including inflation which we are higher and thus the actual liability is higher)

6)      Note 9 also indicated that for every 1% we miss on our assumed 7.5% rate of return it will equate to roughly $1mil in additional liability

7)      Note 13 indicated we were a defendant in several lawsuit in which no contingency has been established for any potential financial cost/award

8)      Note 14 indicated our Retiree Healthcare is 100% unfunded with a current liability of $669,932 growing roughly 7% a year.  In 10 years that liability will be ~$1.5mil and growing.  The audit pointed out we lacked an OPEB trust to fund the liability

9)      In a letter dated Feb 13, 2015 our auditors, Lindsey & Associates, noted difficulties in performing the FY14 audit as well as "Material Misstatements were detected...as a result of audit procedures and were corrected by management"

In your 4/28 post you indicated that "in the recently released audit  of FY 2015 made clear we
had a General Fund (operational) balance of $2,616,418  (equivalent to almost 6 months of expenditures)  and a total fund balance of $4,350,698."

1)      These numbers are obfuscating our current financial position.  These numbers reflect what our balances were as of 6/30/15 NOT what we currently have.  The FY16 budged appropriated $912,118 of the General Fund Balance leaving the surplus AT BEST $1,704,300 at of 7/1/2015

2)      You were asked at the April Worksession what our balances were and you stated you did not know what they were

3)      You did not have the Executive Order issuing a hiring freeze and mandatory Mayoral approval over expenditures on the agenda until I requested it to which you responded "Agree this should be published as an action item.  Will have that added with staff" as of your email 4/21/2016 11:23AM

4)      In the same email in response to my request to updated financial statements your response was "regarding supporting material I don't have the technical knowledge to say all of what is easy, or isn't. However supporting material will be added-- especially the assessable base reports which tell the main story.  Regarding the revenue itself I simply redirect you to the materials that are already available in previous months support materials.I can't address this further until tomorrow" (to which there was no follow-up on your part)

5)      The email gave indications that as our town's CFO you seem wholly unfamiliar with our accounting system, Quickbooks, to the extent of never haven run reports or even knowing if reports could be generated.

In your 4/26 post you stated that:

        1) "there was approximately a $400,000 loss of revenue due to the Department

of Agriculture building be purchased by the Federal Government from the private interest that had previously leased the building to the Feds."

                 2)Also "Because this loss is ongoing it will have a significant impact on the FY2017 budget I am preparing for submission to the council May 2."

I would like to note that your budget was produced on the absolutely latest date that is legally allowed by our Charter (60 days before the end of the fiscal year).  In email exchanges with CM Thompson he stated that were consequences of withdrawing the legislation "which are quite complicated and potentially threatening the smooth operation of the town."  Had I or others seen the budget in advance of a vote on the charter form of government it would have potentially shed some light on matters since said 'consequences' were never divulged or disclosed.

In looking at your prepared budget:

1)      The anticipated (as of 6/30/16) revenues vs. budgeted revenues were $6,465,587 and $7,031,465, a revenue shortfall of ($565, 878)

2)      The specific real estate tax revenue, anticipated vs. budgeted were $3,345,910 and $3,531,910, a revenue shortfall of just ( $186,000)

3)      The specific real estate tax revenue budgeted for this year increases to $3,612,108 (over and above even last year's budgeted number)

4)      Bond Proceeds (which have been asked about numerous times yet never addressed) are listed as a FY16 revenue item of $552,055 with no anticipated revenue expected as of 6/30/16

5)      Appropriated Surplus (deficit) is $348,000

6)      Admin Staff Salaries stay roughly stagnant (the budgeted Dir of Finance of 80k hasn't been filled from last year and there will be months without a Town Administrator on the payroll).  Contracted CPA services (Account 509) to augment the new Town Manager/CFO, and Director of Finance, and already employed HR/Finance Manager is budgeted at $46,000

7)      Economic Development budgeted (Account 902) at $204,700 is only anticipated to spend $20k by 6/30 with only 30k budgeted for FY17 (presumably both items eaten up with attorney fees normally billed to the account)

8)      Item (C) in the Tax Rate breakdown lists Cafritz TIF property tax as applied to the whole town's tax bills as $52,659

9)      The last item of the Tax Rate breakdown requires $173,000 of surplus reserves to be spent in FY17 to not raise the tax rate.

10)   The FY16 and FY17 budgets are $7,031,465 and $6,049,778, a difference of $981,687.  Normalizing the budgets to take out the surplus deficit spending and mysterious 'bond proceeds' (totals of $1,464,173 FY16 and $348,000 FY17)  we used to balance FY16 the budget we really have budgets as follows:  FY16: $5,567,292 and FY17: $5,701,778

My questions are as follows:

1)      Do you now view the Executive Order issued as unnecessary and have rescinded it?  Under what premise were you communicating that we were going to lose 400k in revenue based on your posts and communications when your budget does not reflect this reality?  Once you subtract off the 'bond proceeds' revenue item that was not realized our anticipated budget as of 6/30 is almost dead on the adopted FY budget.

2)      You communicated that the USDA building will have a 'significant impact' to our budget yet the budget proposed has even higher anticipated revenues this year than last.  Do you now agree with my prior well-documented posts on the budget, taxes, and revenue which reflected that the Executive Order was an overreach?

3)      Please clarify that the prior hiring freeze is no longer in effect and it is the town's intention based on your budget to hire a Finance Director in addition to a Town Manager/CFO to augment the staff we already have, HR/Finance Director and contracted CPA

4)      Please clarify 'Bond Proceeds' as a revenue item in FY16 for the public

5)      You communicated to the RPBA this month that Economic Development money is available yet your budget clearly does not reflect this in the level of expenditures required for this FY or next.  Please clarify if you are going to act on the requested grants or not

6)      Please clarify the actual surpluses (rainy day funds) the town has is anticipated to have as of the start of FY17

7)      Please clarify when the town is anticipated to stop balancing budgets on structural deficits (in what FY)

8)      Prior statements that the Cafritz/Whole Foods project would self-finance and the town would not be subjected to paying for it via property taxes seem no longer to be valid.  Please confirm or clarify this assumption/statement.

9)      Please clarify what is left in the Debt Service Fund Reserve since a portion is being used as structural deficit spending to avoid raising the tax rate (taxes already increased because assessments increased townwide).

10)   It was stated in several public meetings that this would be an austere budget.  Once the budgets are normalized to remove surpluses and 'bond proceeds' the budget actually increases over last year which shouldn't be surprising since revenue increased 160k

11)   Generally speaking, your emails indicate a lack of familiarity with our accounting system.  Do you, as the town's CFO, spot audit and/or validate the town's financial reporting personally?  On what frequency do you generate management or other ad hoc reporting that is available via Quickbooks delivered reports?

12)   On our Retiree/OPEB 100% unfunded liability what plan does the town have to address this ticking time bomb?

13)   Based on your budget projections, as CFO of the town, when will the town stop its deficit spending and/or what FY is there a potential tax rate increase due to surplus exhaustion

14)   At what level of financial shock would the town be forced to raise taxes (i.e. lawsuit, tax revenue shortages, additional Cafritz/TIF Bond expenditures)

15)   What consequences was CM Thompson referring to regarding the inability to withdraw the Council/Manager legislation and why were they not discussed or disclosed publically well in advance of a vote for public scrutiny and comment?

16)   What financial auditing/process improvement steps or practices did you as CFO put into place, if any, to address the town being flagged for material misstatements during our audit

I look forward to reading your thoughts and responses!

JWE

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