This is the latest installment in a series of opinion-editorials about the Montclair municipal government, by the Concerned Citizens of Montclair, sent out in an email to subscribers.
As you may have read in local news articles, it was reported that the Town Council recently stated they have a renewed sense of starting over, working as a team and a commitment to return to the more pressing items facing the town. To this end, CCM offered a few straight forward and easy to implement suggestions based on the Municipal Best Practices Checklist as completed by Montclair officials.
Please see full details from the forwarded message below.
Memo to: Mayor Fried, Township Councilors Africk, Baskerville, Lewis, Murnick, Terry, Weller-Demming, and Township Manager Dashield
From: Concerned Citizens of Montclair (CCM)
We are pleased to read that Town Council of Montclair has publicly stated that they have a renewed sense of starting over, working together as a team, and a commitment to return to the more pressing items facing the town.
We respectfully request that the leaders of the town, including the Town Council, Town Manager and all Department Heads, take a more active role in better managing and communicating information regarding the town’s finances and be more forthcoming and transparent in all financial matters relating to running the Township. To this end, we offer the following suggestions:
We have read that the Town has indicated to the State’s Department of Community Affairs on its Municipal Best Practices Worksheet that the following documents exist or that the applicable work is being done. In the spirit of starting over and providing open communication and transparency, we request that these documents be posted to the Township Website in order to provide Montclair’s citizens a better sense of how important financial matters are being managed:
Did your municipality prepare a five-year summary showing the amount of surplus anticipated and the percentage of the budget that this represents?
Does the municipal CFO or auditor evaluate the Town’s capital balances annually to review and cancel unspent funds at the closure of capital projects?
Was a budget history and projection showing three years of history prepared in a “Viewer Friendly” style for public use?
The following items were noted on the same Best Practices Worksheet, not as being in place but to be done “prospectively”. We respectfully request that these practices be put in place as soon as possible and communicated to the citizens of Montclair once they are completed.
Does your municipality have written procedures pertaining to cash receipts and cash disbursements including but not limited to: receiving, recording and preparing deposits for cash receipts; and processing, reviewing, and approving disbursements?
Are bank statements and related canceled checks and validated deposit slips, reviewed and reconciled monthly to the general ledger balances?
Has your governing body reviewed the municipality’s annual financial statement with particular emphasis on surplus generation and usage, tax collection rates (including the status of tax liens), and delinquent tax collection statements?
Do elected officials receive quarterly (or more frequent) reports on the status of all budget revenues and appropriations as they correspond to the annual adopted budget?
Concerned Citizens of Montclair (CCM) is a non-partisan group of Montclair citizens committed to establishing 1) A prudent and responsible Municipal Budget Plan for 2012 and beyond,) 2) prudent and responsible fiscal management by our elected Montclair Township Council, and 3) A transparent municipal budget process.
Good luck with that CCM
Dazed, I hope you are wrong and that some folks working down there have a brain to realize how important basic cash management policies are. How much are we paying the town manager to manage? I hope the new CFO has integrity and can implement these basic things. The Council really needs to enforce these, especially if any of them have a desire to run again.
“cancel unspent funds at the closure of capital projects?”
Cary Africk recently wrote on the ‘cooler of an unused $400,000 from some project funded by bonds having been used to cover operating expenses. That translates to borrowing money to pay today’s bills.
I think we citizens need to know more about the truth of this. Are we using funds from bonds to cover operating expenses? Is there any justification of this? It sounds completely irresponsible.
…Andrew
Soho, I agee, I hope the new CFO has integrity but let’s face it, integrity is not coming from the top.
Andrew – you have got to be kidding me.
“Andrew – you have got to be kidding me.”
I hope I’m wrong or misinformed.
…Andrew
I’m either a dewy-eyed optimist or a drowning man gasping for air, but I find the questions asked by CCM to be the most important questions asked of this town in the two decades I’ve lived here.
I find that I don’t even understand many of the questions being asked by CCM so I’m guessing most of the council doesn’t either.
“to the memory of the men and women who
gave so freely of their time and their fortunes
to build here a Montclair safe and beautiful,
for themselves and their children and for all
who should come after…”
(~ Edwin B. Goodell 1934)
“During all the years of your life here, you have been most active and efficient in public service, freely giving of your time, without renumeration except in the consciousness of being helpful to others.”
(1895 ~ a proclamation signed by numerous citizens, to honor the community service of Dr. John Love…responsable for most our schools, roads, trainline, town planning, several churches, public library, African American religious summer camps, founder of the American University in Beirut….)
“…without renumeration except in the consciousness of being helpful to others.”
CCM has once again asked, in crystal clear language, for financial reporting procedures that are common sense and are being promoted by the state under their Best Practices guidelines.
In the private sector, responsibility requires that, well, you keep track of where your money goes. And you plan your spending for the upcoming years.
In the private sector, organizations go out of business, investors lose their investments, employees lose their jobs when people stop paying attention to finance and let things go awry.
In the Municipal sector, we can’t explain where the money is, or revenue due is not asked for and ….. nothing happens. And instead of reporting a loss the Municipality simply raises taxes and reduces service.
Cary,
Have we given our auditors notice that we are changing to a new firm? I remember at a council meeting almost a year ago that most on the council agreed that good business practices required us to change but we couldn’t change at that time because we had to give our current auditors sufficient notice. I’d hate to hear that we couldn’t make a change again this year because we failed to pay attention to the timeline on this.
“In the private sector, responsibility requires that, well, you keep track of where your money goes. And you plan your spending for the upcoming years.”
Responsibility? Keeping Track?
This from Cary “I can’t oversee the spending.” Africk?
roscoe,
Absolutely agree! In fact, this is probably the THIRD time that “we can’t change auditors because the timing is wrong.”
Cary
I know where you are coming from ROC, but the reality is Cary does not oversee spending, only our Town Manager does. Rosoce also brings up something important, the TC did say they would change Auditors this year, has that been done yet? What happened to the garbage RFP? It’s hard to keep track of all the balls that have been dropped and broken promises made by the Town Manager and Town Council.
Cary,
So are you saying that we’re not changing auditors again this year? Has this decision been made? Or are you saying that you fear that time will slip by and once again we will find it too late in the year to hire a new firm?
If it’s the latter, please tell us what this date would be. Also, has the town interviewed other auditors to find a suitable replacement?
One suggestion: Marc Dashield has many items on his to-do list but seems to struggle with follow-through. Perhaps someone on the TC should pick the items with specific due dates and make a point of asking at each meeting. This was due. Is it done? When will it be done?
I find CCM’s list of Best Practices toward the end of their article to be odd. These are very specific procedures, no doubt there are many more. The value of Best Practices lies in their totality; they reinforce discipline and invite rigor.
I see the issue not as a list of money management practices, but rather leadership. Frank Mason is the new CFO. He is the person who must be the leader on these issues. And his leadership must be from within. We cannot and should not depend on others, be they the Town Manager, elected officials or citizens, to hold his feet to the fire. In my opinion his job priorities are obvious: make Montclair municipal government a recognized state-wide leader in fiscal management, drive change from the top. We should not be following an existing list of Best Practices, we should be adding to this list. If we are not, move on from Mr. Mason quickly.
dazedandconfused,
The Chairman of the CFC (Capital Finance Committee) stood in front of the council, with Mr. Africk present, in February and outlined the various unconsidered costs of the project. It takes no more financial sophistication than a pencil and back of an envelope to arrive at a figure approaching twice Mr. Africk’s “$750K. Period.” assessment of the cost.
The only hope we citizens have of our pocketbook being protected is by the vigilance of our elected representatives to keep track of costs. We’re not asking them to balance the township’s check book, but they should not approve a project without a full accounting of the cost beforehand. Does it take some special training to wonder why $150,000 in “design costs” are not factored into the overall budget? Is that too difficult a concept for our leadership?
They seem to have no problem knowing when our taxes need to be raised, but when it comes to spending same, somehow it’s all too complex to “oversee”.
Sorry. Not buying it. If you “can’t oversee the costs” then step down. What do you think you were elected to do?
The political “process” for big-ticket spending is and has been the same for many years on the part of this and other councils. Make all the possible best case scenario assumptions. Engage in the maximum possible amount of wishful thinking. Issue baseless “studies” (seemingly based on the opinion of unnamed “experts”) and pronounce that the project will “pay for itself”.
Then when the true cost becomes clearer, claim it’s too late to stop now, and maintain it’s not really your job to oversee the costs anyway.
Townie,
I think CCM is asking for the most basic of improvements in efforts to let the leadership succeed on something in the area of finances. You bring up a good point in suggesting the new CFO run with his position and be a recognized state-wide leader in fiscal management. That could really boost hope in us citizens if we see such talent and leadership in the new hire.