Budget overage

 I have been working to get some transparency in out Village finances. The emails below show my inquiries into money that is unaccounted for.

  I recently got a reply, but not all questions were answered, and the answers that I got are completely different from what the Village Administrator told the Board. Also, the new explanations still leave thousands of dollars unaccounted for. The ongoing vagueness and inconsistencies in this area raises red flags for me.  

    Granted, the current treasurer after almost 4 months is still sorting out the mess left by the previous treasurer, but we need a better accounting of taxpayer money than what we are getting. The Village Board is supposed to review the entire financial report once a month, but our financial situation has basically gone black since September of 2021, with no information at all coming forth until very recently, and the report that finally came out is still not accurate.

     The situation is sounding so bad, that in my opinion we should bring in an outside accountant to review our financial records and report the findings to the Village Board. If necessary, file a professional conduct complaint against the previous treasurer for incompetence and negligence. When we pay these people high wages to do a job, you, the taxpayer, deserve professional, competent performance for your money. 

     I'd like to see a paper trail for exactly where this money goes, and how your tax money is moved around. We don't have that now. I plan on continuing to work toward putting a policy or ordinance in place  to assure some transparency in this area of Village finances.

   The email format did not exactly translate too well to the blog format. , but the information is there.   As usual with email threads, in order to follow the exchange, they should be read starting at the bottom, working your way up. 

   At the bottom is a link to the attachments that I refer to in the emails.

 

Ken Charneski

Tue 3/15/2022 3:15 PM

Roger,

   Here is the Administrator wages overage that I was asking about, and also the Zoning Administrator is 7% over budget, even though he was gone all of December. How did this happen?

   Both overages happened in Dec of 2020, because the Nov 30 amounts were at normal levels.  Mr Downey has told the Board  that he is "very familiar with the finances of the Village, the budget, the Tax Increment Districts and the Utilities", so if you can't track down these numbers, he should be able to explain where these overages come from.

   Also, as discussed. The Dec 2020 garbage bill was paid out of 2021 funds, and leaving us currently short of 2021 money to pay the Dec 2021 garbage bill.

   If this is so, then we should have had a surplus of $18,000 in 2020 that was not used to pay the Dec 2020 bill. Correct?

   As you can see in the attachment, 2020 did not end up with a budget surplus in that line item, but instead had a shortage of $21,500 in the YTD amount of $346,653, which somehow that number returned in the projected amount, to be the original budgeted amount of $325,018.

   So at $325,000, there is no $18,000 surplus as there should be, And at the $346,653 figure, we are missing about $40,000.

   How did the $346,653 disappear like that , and return to $325,000? What was the total amount actually paid for garbage pick-up in 2020, and in 2021?

   I have attached the 2020 so-called budget amendment from the Dec 22, 2020 VB packet. Nothing there about covering an overage for garbage fees.

   I hate to make more work for you, but this money needs to be accounted for.

Thanks,

Ken Charneski

 https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/12sNrFmCxLaYZzY1DkdnzA9HAI9ndmlZE?usp=sharing