Lake Worth Pier after FrancesThe most shocking statement from the city commission meeting was made at the end by the city manager.
Hurricane Frances destroyed the Lake Worth Pier. It remained damaged for approximately 4 years. If you recall, years later we eventually got things cleared with FEMA and began to rebuild. We received funds from FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) for the hurricane damage to our Pier during the time when Paul Boyer was the city manager. Back then, the current year's expenditures included $487,000 in FEMA related costs which had occurred in the prior year. The accountants stated then that the amount recorded was incorrect--that the revenue recorded did not correlate to the expenditures incurred.
Also $250,000 received was recorded in the general fund rather than in the electric and water funds where the related expense occurred. This entire topic was dropped from discussion by Staff and by the then city commission and all subsequent city commissions. Dropped and discarded.
The City was put on notice by our external auditors that there were accounting errors with the FEMA money. One of the things you must do is back up the receivables from FEMA with receipts. Guess what? The city manager now says that the city can not produce the receipts and FEMA wants us to reimburse them $1.2 million.
There were a few things of interest at last night's city commission meeting and surprisingly, it was the answers from the commissioners that were derived from the public speaking. I will touch on one for the moment.
Everyone who was here in October 2005 remembers Wilma. The eye actually went over Lake Worth. It caused a lot of damage. Our electric was out for 12.5 days. "Luckily" we had a contract with Utility Lines Construction Services, Inc. and Rayco Industries, Inc. for emergency line restoration services. We contract with them every year for which I am aware...maybe still do.
That leads into this--when I was talking about the budget and asking the commission to be cognizant of the small expenditures (something Jessica Plotkin had told them at the FAB joint meeting) as well as all of the expenditures, I specifically mentioned the $34,000 membership to FMEA, (Florida Municipal Electric Association and the lobbying arm of FMPA). Not to get into specifics, the jist was to knock off the unnecessary spending and to question everything that came before them--was it necessary and if so, was it necessary THIS YEAR, a year that has been declared a financial urgency.
I got a reply about the membership--"We needed it and it sends us emergency crew in time of a hurricane."
When asking the past Utility Task Force Chairman, Bill Coakley, this is what he had to say--
We still pay for housing for seminars like the twelve thousand we spent a few years ago in addition to the $35,000. It's a waste of money that we can't afford any more. It's a private country club jamboree with the same information presented to the same folks. And as far as hurricane relief goes, if FMEA was so great... why did Stanley hire 29 people (who had never seen our system) to come in and do an evaluation of it after Francis or Wilma? Why was all or nearly all of the hurricane work previously done by contractors who are always available like Rayco and Utility Lines as we saw in the last group of hurricanes. They come from all over.
It's just another pleasant waste of money that indulges utility staff that at this point doesn't need indulgence. FMEA does help with legal issues affecting FMPA and municipal power companies but how many of those have there been during the past X number of years we've been paying hundreds of thousands of dollars. See, if they are going to lower utility rates they have to draw the line here. They can develop a hurricane plan. They don't need FMEA for that. errrrrr(&^%$##@
Is this for FMPA or the city’s involvement in the municipal association, for things like mutual aid and such, either way it’s not the most prudent expenditure, but with the absence of any real experience in LW utilities they don’t have much of a choice. They are doomed if they have a storm, Ocala personnel found just how little Becky knew when they were hit in 2004, she is the most clueless, but it is LW. Maybe someone should ask where all the money for the conversion is and where it was spent, oh that’s right it was only about 15 million, chump change for waste in LW.
ReplyDeleteBelieve me when I tell you that there is no shortage of linemen willing to come to LW when a storm hits. We brought them in all the way from California, Louisana, Michigan, etc. Its a good thing that finding linemen was not a problem as FMEA was no help what-so-ever.
ReplyDeleteIt could be argued that storm restoration efforts by FMEA are reason enough to become and remain a member. But.....I have been through three (3) major hurricanes in Lake Worth and when we asked for assistance from FMEA, we were turned down. I had to go to Atlanta for the material I required to get the lights back on and had to hire private contractors to assist the line crews. So......I would say that LW's $34K that year was spent on nothing.
ReplyDeleteFMEA is a lobbying group, nothing more and nothing less.
Former employee
The city does not have any receipts. They also do not have any photos to document the damage. These storms have almost no documentation what-so-ever as there was no pre-planning by the accounting dept and the storeroom. In fact, these people would not even come in and work the storm. They refused to come in to the city during a moment of crisis. We even had to have our linemen manning the storeroom in order to get material out to the crews. It was a fiasco. Paul Boyer should have fired half of city hall for not working the storm and this is what you get for it.
ReplyDeleteBut, on a positive note: Andy Baldassi (T&D Superintendent) did everything in his power to get things back up and running, but with no help from city hall, the accounting dept. or the stores dept.
How is it possible that we do not have the paperwork to support all the money spent to repair the pier. This is even more reason why an Internal Auditor is essential and required by our Charter. Stanton and the Commission are violating the law each day this position goes empty. The law means nothing to this group yet they want citizens to follow strict rules of conduct when addressing them.
ReplyDeleteCan you please demand an internal auditor who can also check the utility?
ReplyDeleteThe federal government's audit of FEMA expenditures has been known for quite some time (a year?) I haven't read the City managers reports since last year, but when I last did, they were giving glowing reports about the City's compliance with FEMA. I question why we are just now hearing about this from the City Manager when everything was just so wonderful before.
ReplyDeleteThis in itself should be the reason the commission should fire the city manager. She is arrogant and incompetent and the citizens deserve better than her mediocrity. She treat all of us like crap. Fire Susan Stanton now!
ReplyDeleteThis was two city manager ago--it has nothing to do with Susan Stanton other than the fact she didn't know about it perhaps? We need an internal auditor and we need it NOW. Everyone should be demanding that we hire Scott Menke back. There was nothing wrong with him--he found the corruption and incompetence and the last commission treated him like chit by terminating his services. I can use profanity here.
ReplyDelete