... it's Salisbury. What do you expect.
On the 7PM news broadcast this evening on WBOC we witnessed something that should shock, but unfortunately no longer does - the Salisbury city administration lying to its citizens. Tonight Salisbury Mayor Barrie Tilghman, through City Administrator John Pick tried to brush aside new evidence of the gross incompetence of the city's administration by claiming that $10.2 million of taxpayer funds which had not been accounted for was due to poor training in the city's Finance Department. Pick claimed that employees thought that accounts should have been reconciled on an annual basis when they should have been reconciled monthly.
Sounds semi-plausible, doesn't it? There's just a couple of problems with the specious claims of Mr. Pick.
At the December 10, 2007 Salisbury Council meeting, Councilwoman Debbie Campbell claimed that the city's inability to complete its annual audit on time was equivalent to a taxpayer not being able to balance his (or her) checkbook. Pam Oland, head of the city's Finance Department claimed that this was ridiculous. Oland stated that a fair comparison was the city reconciling its accounts each month, which they did.
OK John, who's lying? You? Pam? It is logically impossible for both of you to be telling the truth.
The second problem with Pick's explanation is that IF the Finance Department thought that the accounts in question were to be reconciled on an annual basis, why didn't they do so? We know that they did not, because the auditor states that they (the auditors) discovered the two accounts totaling $10.2 million.
We now know that Pick lied to the public on Friday, because the auditor has contradicted Pick's statement (prior to him actually making it). As for Oland, we can't be 100% sure (on this count). The auditor states that Oland had told them that the city began reconciling accounts in February of 2007 (only after 7 months of the fiscal year had passed).
Unfortunately for Barrie Tilghman and her merry little band things are getting a little too complicated for them to keep fibbing on the fly.
There was one good thing that came from Friday's fib fest. The next time Debbie Campbell, or anyone else states that the Barrie Tilghman administration can't balance its own checkbook, we have video of the City Administrator stating that the city can't balance its own checkbook.
cross posted at Delmarva Dealings
Technorati Tags: Maryland, Salisbury, politics, Salisbury politics, fiscal policy, audit, corruption
On the 7PM news broadcast this evening on WBOC we witnessed something that should shock, but unfortunately no longer does - the Salisbury city administration lying to its citizens. Tonight Salisbury Mayor Barrie Tilghman, through City Administrator John Pick tried to brush aside new evidence of the gross incompetence of the city's administration by claiming that $10.2 million of taxpayer funds which had not been accounted for was due to poor training in the city's Finance Department. Pick claimed that employees thought that accounts should have been reconciled on an annual basis when they should have been reconciled monthly.
Sounds semi-plausible, doesn't it? There's just a couple of problems with the specious claims of Mr. Pick.
At the December 10, 2007 Salisbury Council meeting, Councilwoman Debbie Campbell claimed that the city's inability to complete its annual audit on time was equivalent to a taxpayer not being able to balance his (or her) checkbook. Pam Oland, head of the city's Finance Department claimed that this was ridiculous. Oland stated that a fair comparison was the city reconciling its accounts each month, which they did.
OK John, who's lying? You? Pam? It is logically impossible for both of you to be telling the truth.
The second problem with Pick's explanation is that IF the Finance Department thought that the accounts in question were to be reconciled on an annual basis, why didn't they do so? We know that they did not, because the auditor states that they (the auditors) discovered the two accounts totaling $10.2 million.
We now know that Pick lied to the public on Friday, because the auditor has contradicted Pick's statement (prior to him actually making it). As for Oland, we can't be 100% sure (on this count). The auditor states that Oland had told them that the city began reconciling accounts in February of 2007 (only after 7 months of the fiscal year had passed).
Unfortunately for Barrie Tilghman and her merry little band things are getting a little too complicated for them to keep fibbing on the fly.
There was one good thing that came from Friday's fib fest. The next time Debbie Campbell, or anyone else states that the Barrie Tilghman administration can't balance its own checkbook, we have video of the City Administrator stating that the city can't balance its own checkbook.
cross posted at Delmarva Dealings
Technorati Tags: Maryland, Salisbury, politics, Salisbury politics, fiscal policy, audit, corruption
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16 comments:
And you know how Shanie and Gary are always saying that they trust City staff; Shanie has even gone so far as to state we should not question staff. Well, Oland's complete incompetence pretty much shoots that trust-staff-theory down.
1. John Pick has sold his soul to the devil herself, Barrie Tilghman.
2. The 3 accountants on staff are not paid to think, they are paid to balance accounts, prepare financial reports and RECONCILE ACCOUNTS. It is basic accounting principles, not rocket science.
3. Pam Oland is proving herself to be quite the liar. The auditors have proven they do not reconcile the accounts nor do they post all entries to the general ledger and balance the books. Therefore the city has no clue what it has in its checkbook. The 2 FOUND accounts prove this as well.
4. The many adjustments made by the auditors also proves they are not doing their job. This begs the question why are they not getting the job done when Pam, Barrie, Louise, and Shanie all stated many times they are fully staffed.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH
I just watched the 11pm version of WBOCs news report on this issue. They cut Debbie out completely and only reported that Barrie said she takes full responsibility that the accountants were new and didn't know where to post the money.
In essence she is saying she knowingly hired incompetent people. It's ok though folks, once again Barrie takes full responsibility. Now just exactly what does that mean?
How much of that double-digit tax increase last year was due to "poor training" in the finance office?
Gee, when I don't know what I should do on the job, I ask my boss.
Boss, how often should I be reconciling these accounts?
Who's the boss?
When the boss doesn't know, the boss makes a phone call to someone who knows, and then we do that.
Who ya gonna call?
Ghostbusters?
Any idea of Pick's salary or Oland's?
Some one need to call in someone from the Attorney General's Office, white collar crimes division and a full investigation should follow. Criminal charges should be filed, however, they won't be as in the cases I stated in the earlier post.
On one hand, failure to reconcile the books on a monthly basis (A January 2007 edict) is because of inexperience & lack of knowledge within the department, on the other because of inadequate staff. Well, which is it? Seems it's inadequate staff either way you look at it.
A fisrt 10 minutes accounting student could total 2 columns, one being money in, the other money out. Heck, you need not study accounting at all to be able to do this. Betcha second graders could do it.
Barrie is the one who tinkered with the Finance Dept. when it wasn't broken. She merged and purged, advertised for Oland's position before the Council acted to approve, etc., etc. As is Barrie's way, she screwed things up totally. When Barrie's hands get into the mix, things get completely screwed up. What happened to the prior Finance Director--Barrie did it.
Others there prior Oland also great City employees who left--Barrie did it.
All this makes the Zoo Director who decided not to come here seem like a genius in her decision.
Is Pick on contract? Read somewhere that he was only City staffer who is.
Suggest Campbell and Cohen put forward a motion of no confidence in the administration of Barrie Parsons Tilghman and Louise Smith at the next Council meeting. They could list all the points for such a motion.
It's 11 Million dollars found, while we city residents had a 14% increase in our property taxes last year. I want my money back!
Makes one wonder if there is still money out there hidden somewhere. I think this whole entire situation needs to go to an independent 3rd party or state attorney and any and all pending contracts, business dealings, etc, just need to be put on hold until this mess is cleaned up, cleaned out to the satisfaction of the public. Speaking of cleaning out---we need to have a clean sweep of the government employees and the council members who feel like answering due diligence questions is just too draining on their time. I certainly can understand the log jam that micromanagement can get you into----but no freaking management gets one into an even bigger mess, such as the many bad business dealings that have beenorchestrated by the powers that be, and blessed by the puppet council members.
I say let Mrs. Cohen and Campbell speak---and take that damn gavel away from Louise----period.
Well this city administration has gotten itself into one hell of a mess, under the leadership that controls things now. So I think it is past time for we citizens to propose and make happen a combining of the city controls with the County administration. At least they seem to be able to do accounting in a fair-to-the-taxpayers way. Also such a move would relieve us city folks of the double taxation problem. What say you bloggers?
A. Goetz
any motions put forth by C & C would just be voted down in the "usual" 3 to 2 fashion.
I bet by the time Barry is out of office there will be a discovery of theft or fraud on her behalf and she will not take responsibility but put it back on Oland or Pick. I would like to know was the money just forgotten or was it invilved in some other activity and just put back for audits?
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