Finance Director Traig Neal and accounting supervisor Peggy McFarland are getting plenty of praise to help carry them through the trauma of the budget season.
State Sen. Doug Berger sent a letter to Henderson’s Finance Department on March 22 to congratulate Neal and his staff on receiving an award for the 2004-05 budget presentation from the Government Finance Officers Association.
It was the second consecutive year that Henderson received the recognition but the first for Neal and McFarland, who picked up the assignment of preparing the budget book after budget analyst Sandra Wilkerson became Mayor Clem Seifert’s assistant in December 2003.
“Receiving the award the first year under new leadership is especially rewarding,” wrote the first-term Franklin County Democrat, whose district includes Vance County. “It seems that Henderson’s budgeting process is indeed in good hands.”
Mayor Clem Seifert is due to mention and perhaps read the letter at the start of Monday night’s meeting of the Henderson City Council, and Neal and McFarland are to honored with a formal presentation of the GFOA award at a future council meeting.
The value of that award came up Thursday night during Neal’s presentation of the Finance Department’s budget to the City Council.
Council member Elissa Yount said the budget presentation award “has nothing to do with the quality of the budget.”
She asked how many additional hours the city staff spent to prepare the budget book for GFOA submission.
“I don’t think it takes a great deal more than it did prior to getting the award,” Neal said.
Assistant City Manager Mark Warren said the city pursued the GFOA budget award as a performance goal to make the annual spending proposal easier to read and understand. The award itself is secondary.
Council member John Wester said the effort succeeded. “The budget, the it’s way prepared now vs. before the GFAO, it’s easier to read. It’s better.”
The GFAO financial reporting award for the annual audit is another matter, Neal said. Producing an audit that complies with the association’s standards requires much more time and effort on the part of the auditor, thus more expense for the city.
The audit produced an entirely different discussion Thursday night.
One of Neal’s goals for the coming year is to receive the audit in a more timely manner. City officials were angry that accounting firm William L. Stark & Co. didn’t deliver the audit until late January, almost seven months into a fiscal year in which the city was operating with a general fund balance that was less than half the minimum standard set by the state’s Local Government Commission.
The LGC was not happy with the lateness of the audit, City Manager Eric Williams said, and neither was the GFOA. Neal indicated that the city’s run of more than a dozen years of winning the GFOA’s financial reporting award will be doomed if the audit is late again next year.
Yount asked how Neal will get the audit earlier, and the finance director said he will push the auditor and make sure the firm understands the urgency of its work.
The city can’t use the threat of giving its audit business to another firm. Stark has two more years on its current contract, with an option for a fifth year. And Stark has audited the city’s books seven years in a row.
Yount said that situation is a problem. The LGC recommends that cities change auditors every three years to get a fresh perspective on the finances and to prevent too much coziness between the auditor and the finance staff (on a much bigger, more dramatic scale, such coziness has contributed to Enron-type corporate disasters).
“We should just do the audit on a three-year term,” council member Mike Rainey said.
“I think that’s an excellent idea,” Neal said.
The problem is that Stark doesn’t have much competition, city officials said. Stark was the only Henderson firm to bid for the audit work when the contract last came up, and it was the low bidder.
The City Council might have to pick an out-of-town contractor, which conflicts with its goal of keeping business local, and it might have to pick a higher bidder.
“We could have doubled our audit costs” by awarding the current contract to a firm other than Stark, Wester said. mill accreditationinterest card 0 credit offersaccept card cards credit creditadvancial credit unionamericredit services financialamericredit payments incorrectcards accept with no credit terminalno card credit 100 free porn Map