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| More thoughts on Linwood Township finances |
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| Wednesday, 05 March 2008 | |
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Rudi McCurdy Guest Columnist Elsewhere in today’s newspaper, readers may find a column endorsed by the Linwood Town Board regarding the town’s precariously low reserve fund. Said article insinuates that the low balance of the fund is due to Linwood citizen’s decision to cut the budget by $100,000 at last year’s annual meeting. However, facts clearly show that when setting the budget, it was the town board who chose to disregard the mandate discussed at the annual meeting by lowering the budget only $64,200.00 and then borrowing $35,800.00 from the reserve fund. This means the budget for 2009 will have to allocate this borrowed sum back towards the reserves in order to meet the auditor’s recommendations. Readers can reference the 2009 proposed budget online at www.linwoodtownship.org, under Budget News?\ and then 2009 Budget. For 2009, I have a suggestion as to where the additional monies can be found. For their service, each board member receives at least $262 per month. For this monthly stipend, each is expected to attend the two monthly town board meetings, plus one additional committee meeting. Any additional meetings attended are compensated at $75 per meeting. Historically, no member received compensation for more than one meeting per day and other than during budget time, members rarely had more than one or two extra meetings per month. Currently, some board members claim more than one meeting per day and some are compensated for nine or 10 extra meetings a month. However, no records can be found which demonstrate exactly how these extra meetings benefit the township, and no verification reports are ever filed. In many instances, Board members simply inform the clerk that they didn’t receive compensation for a previously attended meeting, and compensation is added to current expenditures So how serious is this rather blatant abuse of township funds? In order to understand where this money is spent, I provide the following statistics for the 2007 fiscal year. •Supervisor A, Howard Holm, attended 20 of 23 town board meetings and was compensated for 35 extra meetings ($2625) in addition to his monthly salary. Total compensation in 2007 = $5778.24. •Supervisor B, Philip Osterhus, attended 21 of 23 town board meetings and was compensated for 73 extra meetings ($5475) in addition to his monthly salary. Total compensation in 2007 = $8628.24. •Supervisor C, Mike Parker, attended 22 of 23 town board meetings and was compensated for 35 extra meetings ($2625.) in addition to his monthly salary. Total compensation in 2007 = $6410.16. •Supervisor D, Robert Johnson, attended 18 of 23 town board meetings and was compensated for 10 extra meetings ($750) in addition to his monthly salary. Total compensation in 2007 = $3903.24. •Supervisor E, Scott Bailey, attended 11 of 23 town board meetings and was compensated for 1 extra meeting ($75) in addition to his monthly salary. Total compensation in 2007 = $3228.24. •Total compensation for extra meetings in 2007 = $11,550. Although compensating members for attending committee meetings is a long-standing tradition, much of it seems like a waste of money. Committees are strictly a recommending body and must receive town board approval for all recommendations. These recommendations are handled at the regular town board meetings and committee-meeting minutes are provided, thus eliminating the need for town board representation. It is also my opinion that attending community functions such as Linwood Family Day, the children’s Christmas Party, National Night Out events, etc. should not be considered a meeting. Neither should be attending a fireman’s retirement party, especially if a dinner voucher is also presented. Mileage requests also often accompany these extra meeting fund requests. I would respectfully recommend that Linwood Town Board members attending extra meetings provide a full report of each of these meetings. Reports should indicate date and time, total time spent at the meeting, specific benefits to Linwood Township and whether continued attendance is warranted. Reports should be on file as public information. Please note, these statistics were obtained from the Linwood Township office and are public information. Any mathematical errors, though unlikely, are purely unintentional. The writer is a former member of the Linwood Town Board of Supervisors. Social Bookmarking ...       |
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