Liberty Township financial woes continue with release of state audit

By Ed Runyan

runyan@vindy.com

LIBERTY

The continuation of the township’s fiscal-caution designation from the Ohio Auditor’s Office announced Monday is just part of the bad news for the township’s finances.

On Tuesday, the Ohio Auditor’s Office released the township’s 2012-13 audit, which contains a finding for recovery related to $3,000 that was overpaid to the township’s legal counsel, Atty. Mark Finamore.

It also contains three other findings that indicate other errors made by the former fiscal officer, John Fusco, and other township officials.

But Steve Shelton, the township’s current fiscal officer, says the four findings in the most current audit are an improvement over the one before that – the 2010-11 audit – when the township first was placed in fiscal caution in October 2013.

The 2010-11 audit indicated that the township had illegally used “$85,304 from the [annual budget] police district fund and $161,388 from the fire district fund to pay debt obligations of the general fund and the 911 communication fund,” a violation of the Ohio Revised Code, Ohio Auditor Dave Yost said.

That audit also found several other problems, bringing the total that needed to be corrected to about $400,000.

In the audit released Tuesday, the state found several of the problems from the 2010-11 audit occurred again in 2012-13 – such as not paying debt obligations out of the proper funds and spending amounts exceeding appropriations.

The overpayment of Finamore was corrected when the the township became aware of it with Finamore repaying the overpayment, Shelton said. It involved Finamore being paid his $1,600 monthly retainer every two weeks, which should have resulted in him being paid 24 times in 2013, but he was paid 26 times because of an error by the township payroll clerk.

Shelton, who became fiscal officer in December 2013, said a review process that has been implemented should catch future errors of this type.

The most-recent audit also says the township failed to account for grant funds of about $30,000. They were paid directly to the contractor, which is common, but they still need to be listed as income and expense, Shelton said.

The township also listed several forms of revenue under the wrong categories – property tax instead of intergovernmental receipts in 2012, for instance.

In 2013, the township posted $10,000 and $20,000 as property-tax receipts “when no such receipts were received by the township,” the audit said.

Shelton said he thinks the reason this occurred is that Fusco entered the $30,000 to correct a problem resulting from $30,000 worth of expenses being entered incorrectly and not knowing how to fix that mistake.

Reviewing spending on a more frequent basis and reducing spending should avoid some of the accounting failures of the past and lead to the township losing the fiscal caution designation by 2016, Shelton said.