State department to investigate shortfall in Templeton budget
Eryn Dion
News Staff Writer
TEMPLETON — The Department of Revenue will be visiting the Town Offices Monday morning, with representatives from Boston and Springfield coming in to examine the town’s financial records and conduct a review for potential receivership.Among the issues to be discussed is the actual amount of the budget shortfall, which may be higher than previously stated.
“On the phone they said that one of the reasons for coming here is to determine if the shortfall is $505,000 or $585,000,” said Town Administrator Bob Markel.
“There had been a rumor of that before,” he added. “But now that’s part of their mission.”
That discrepancy, Mr. Mar-kel explained, may lie in how the town has reported debt on their Schedule A forms.
“They didn’t say definitely that’s the case. They need to take a closer look and make sure,” Mr. Markel said.
In addition to a suspected shortfall increase, Mr. Markel was also informed that the DOR has begun preparing special deficit legislation, allowing them to assume control of the town’s finances in the event the override vote does not pass. The legislation is necessary, as it is illegal for a city or town to run a deficit in Massachusetts and the town does not have sufficient reserves or enough available from budget cuts to cover the half-million dollar gap.
Mr. Markel described the potential state takeover as a “straightjacket” where officials from Boston or Springfield will need to sign off on any significant activities or expenditures undertaken by the town.
“While state control might seem superficially attractive to some it is not something that the public, as well as the people in the municipal government will like,” Mr. Markel commented.
Vice Chairman Kenn Robinson echoed these sentiments, explaining that state control was not a magic solution and required a lot of hard work from departments already short on staff and salaries.
“This isn’t something where we get to hand our problems off to Boston,” he said. “They’ll have half a decade of control over us and we still will be doing the work ourselves.”
Receivership would also give the town a negative notoriety around the state, putting them in league with Springfield, Chelsea, and Lawrence – the only three cities to have gone through this process.
Should the DOR follow through, Templeton would earn the distinction of being the first town placed under the department’s control, with both the town and school budgets at their disposal. If the override fails to pass, the Special Town Meeting generally held during Annual Town Meeting will take on a significant role, as the DOR could insist that the town follow through with the 5 percent budget cuts mandated by the Board of Selectmen.
While the town’s financial records have not been in order, Mr. Markel insisted that the new financial management team in place was both competent and hard at work to fix past mistakes, remarking that he could “see daylight at the end of the tunnel.”
Why is the budget shortfall changing again? Is it possible to get a correct answer from the finacial team of this town? Can anyone give us a real answer?
ReplyDeleteDave,
ReplyDeleteWe won't know until Monday. The DOR calls the shots.
What is very frustrating is that in prior years when we were using every penny of free cash and Stabilization money to prop up our budget, we had auditors (Melanson & Heath) check the books. Those recap numbers were then okayed by the DOR...never questioned.
For a good time google up Saugus + Powers & Sullivan. Check out what happened in Barre. Oh wait, you can't that was covered up by the DA.
It appears there were financial irregularities going on in a few communities for a very long time. It would make an interesting case study to correlate which of those communities had Melanson & Heath as auditors. Another variable would be to see which communities had K&P as town attorneys and Melanson & Heath as auditors.
It is a bitter pill, but I think the town is better off with an override than a state control board.
Mr. Dickie, I would be more interested in how, why and what changed with the DOR's Deb Wagner, as she came in to town and spent a Monday looking over the books. Followed was a selectmen meeting where interim Town Administrator Bob Markel stated she had determined the budget shortfall to be in the $370,000.00 range (about) and I recall Sean Hamiliton asking the BOS how someone spent 4 hours looking and got the shortfall from $505,477.00 to the $370,000.00 range? So what happened to that number? Was Deb Wagner correct or was she wrong? Now this $585,000.00 figure comes to us from the DOR. This 75 or 80 thousand dollar increase may be do to the way in which some things were reported out of the treasurer's office. I believe there were some things filed last year, in the spring for FY2012 by the former treasurer that were changed or refused by the DOR and if the same thing was again tried this year, well that could be that increase but what happened to Deb Wagner's initial find which resulted in a reduction of the shortfall? Would this be someone you want taking a look at your books or should someone else come in? Personally, rather than have the DOR checking any records, which by the way, these would be the records the DOR already certified in the past (the article in the Gardner News and a department head meeting where it was put out the DOR would go back 10 years) I believe it would be in the town's interest to have an independent firm such as Powers & Sullivan do the looking. That is the firm who looked into the Saugas mess. Just for information, I am pretty sure the firm of Melanson Heath did audits in the city of Springfield and Lawrence as well as Saugus.
ReplyDeleteSounds top me that this Deb. Wagner should stay back at the office. Why did she allow such sloppy work be done by our old accountant Mr. Sawyer ?? If she had no control, what was her job ? I know from a good source the previous boards were told to stop using free cash, and money from other accounts that should not have been touched, so why didn't any of these leaders have the backbone to be honest with the people in this town?? Echo hill, and company, don't tell me you did not know the mess we were in ?? No one should have known more than that crew, who were in charge for so many years !! Dam good thing we were not dumb enough to get suckered into spending money we do not have for 252 !! It may be a blessing that Bubba and Ms. Wilder did such a good job appointing the past two treasurers, or we may have been up the creek without the paddle or boat, if no one had noticed that something was wrong. Then again if the best treasurer was not bullied, maybe she would have stayed, then we would not be in this mess at all. This is my opinion, and I am right !
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