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Lake Worth Pier after Frances
The 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 $35,000. It's a waste of money that we can't afford any more. It's a private country club jamboree with the same information presented to the same folks. And as far as hurricane relief goes, if FMEA was so great... why did Stanley hire 29 people (who had never seen our system) to come in and do an evaluation of it after Francis or Wilma? Why was all or nearly all of the hurricane work previously done by contractors who are always available like Rayco and Utility Lines as we saw in the last group of hurricanes. They come from all over.
It's just another pleasant waste of money that indulges utility staff that at this point doesn't need indulgence. FMEA does help with legal issues affecting FMPA and municipal power companies but how many of those have there been during the past X number of years we've been paying hundreds of thousands of dollars. See, if they are going to lower utility rates they have to draw the line here. They can develop a hurricane plan. They don't need FMEA for that. errrrrr(&^%$##@
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