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Liberty fiscal caution
By jeanne starmack
liberty
The township is still waiting for release from fiscal caution, but word will not come until a state audit going on now is finished.
A representative from the state auditor’s office said its staff is trying to make sure the township has corrected previous findings for adjustments in the 2008-09 audit and that it hasn’t repeated the mistakes in the present audit period.
State Auditor David Yost placed the township under fiscal caution Oct. 3, saying that the township didn’t correct improper budget fund transfers and had it made those adjustments, the general fund would have had a negative cash balance of $313,110.
Yost accused the township of “robbing police and fire funds to balance its general-fund budget.”
The township trustees used $400,000 in state inheritance taxes to correct the negative balance and to correct the transfers. They paid $20,000 from the general fund to the fire fund and $15,000 from the police fund to the fire fund. That occurred at a meeting Oct. 2, but it was too late to stop the notice of fiscal caution, which the township received that afternoon.
The state required a fiscal recovery plan, which the township submitted in November, township law director Mark Finamore has said.