Is Oceanport Mismanaged for Personal Gain?

In response to the posting of Wednesday, September 20, 2006, by "Oceanport Reports" at the following Blog, http://oceanport1-reports.blogspot.com/

http://www.state.nj.us/treasury/lgbr/munpdf/seagirt.pdf

Sea Girt had an independent audit conducted and found many areas where the town could save money. This is exactly what Oceanport Needs before the Democrats increase taxes once again.


Getting back to the meeting the writer is referencing, that was a Workshop meeting that was held on Thursday, March 3, 2005. According to the minutes Mayor Gatta was interested in passing a budget to finance the debt. The key word is "DEBT", which is defined as "a state of owing". According to the minutes it was reported that at the time, March 3, 2005, the town was in debt for the amount of $900,000.00.


That's right, nearly a MILLION DOLLARS, which was accrued under the Democratic controlled Town.


What does this mean? Well, in a simple term. "MISMANAGEMENT" of the town's finances. How could it have gotten this far out of control? If the town was properly managed, then why would there be an increase in the budget at all during this calendar year and why such a large debt in a small town? IN NEED OF AN INDEPENDENT AUDIT?


In fact, the town does not maintain an inventory list of all property and Equipment, such as furniture, vehicles, office equipment, computers, telecommunication equipment, etc., that each Department has assigned to them.


Meaning, Borough Hall itself and all the office's attached to them, Code Enforcement, Building Inspector, Public Works, Police, Fire, First Aid etc.....


Our town leaders have no idea how much we have spent in the last ten years for these items and doesn’t maintain a list to show where the items were assigned, who signed for them, the values of each item and what the life expectancy is of each item. There is no receipt process in place that would formally document when the item was received at Borough Hall and when the item was given to a Department Head. Basically they have no idea where anything is located and they have no idea of the life expectancy of any particular item.


Basically, the Borough has no Policy or Audit Procedures in place to track each item they have purchased. How can they justify replacing items or purchasing more or new items when they don't even know what they have in inventory?


Good Business practices would require an annual inventory of all equipment, first to make ceratin the item is not lost or missing and secondly to determine if it is in need of replacement. This way the budget can be drafted to reflect money specifically allotted for these items.


There should be a Property Control Person to track all property purchased and assigned, as well as property taken out of service because it has past it's life expectancy. HINT , possibly the Borough Clerk's Office should be assigned to accomplish this task. There should be a computerized "INVENTORY TRACKING" program to account for all property and equipment purchased by the Borough to track all additions, transfers or deletions to the Borough Inventory.

Please go to Borough Hall and asked them for a categorized list of all the Property and Equipment that has been purchased in the last ten years and then asked them to put a total amount spent on such items. You will learn that no such data is keep. Basically, there are no internal controls, checks or balances in place that would oversee the spending on property and equipment, which is a very large expense to taxpayers. Again, another area of Mismanagement. But what can you say, other than Business as usual for the last twenty years.


Now of course the question should be asked, How could the current Democratic Controlled Management of the Town supervise the Borough and it's finances when they don't possess the skills or abilities to manage a simple inventory of property and equipment? That is unbelievable. This is why you have uncontrolled spending of hard earned taxpayer money. This most certainly contributes to the increase of taxes every year.

And who will suffer?

The elderly who are on fixed incomes and the middle class.

The Democractic Controlled Council really does not consider or have any compassion for the taxpayer, specifically the elderly and middle class when drafting a budget. The burden they place upon you the taxpayer is unbearable and should not be tolerated.

Do they really consider the taxpayer when they paid an architect about $20,000.00 to draft plans to build a 9 million dollar Municpal Building in a year of a re-evaluation, the same year the school is attempting to pass two referendums totaling around 52 Million dollars. During the same time frame the Mayor and the Democratic Controlled Council arbitrarily handing out pay raises to Borough Employees while buying property and equipment they really don't need. Paying an outside attorney well over $100,000.00 dollars to defend the Borough against the Builders Remedy Lawsuit. This all adds up to Uncontrolled Spending and the lack of accountability to the citizens of Oceanport.

Why would you even consider building a 9 Million Dollar Municpal Building when we are in the process of obtaining buildings and property from Fort Monmouth? One of the buildings on Fort Monmouth can be used for the Municipal Building, hence savings millions of taxpayer money?

Ponder this........ Instead of hiiting the taxpayer all the time for tax increases to finance all their pet projects and purchases, have an independent auditor and forensic accountant conduct a review of the Borough's entire operation.

There are several areas where cuts can be made.

Is it really necessary to rent office space to house the Code Enforcement and Building Inspector.

Mr. Sharkey introduced a budget that would have literally save taxpayers money. But, you need to review the minutes of the "Special Meeting" dated Thursday, April 14, 2005 to fully understand the proposal. The catch word is "UNDERSTAND". This Special Meeting was held to adopt the 2005 Municipal Budget.


However, before any discussion had taken place, at the time Councilwoman Chaump asked the Clerk to adopt a resolution. In fact here is the exact verbiage from the minutes;


Councilwoman Chaump asked the Clerk to read resolution R-05-54 allowing the Borough to self examine the 2005 Budget after which she moved to approve same. (IN NEED OF AN INDEPENDENT AUDIT)


This begs the question of; How does a Borough self examine a budget, when they do not have the abilities to identify a balanced or properly managed Borough account?


The budget the Democrats proposed and fully agreed upon in conjunction with the Borough Auditor, was nothing less than astonishing. The Auditor basically explained in a very involved and sometimes confusing terms that they wanted to use money collected for the School Tax to offset the Municipal debt.


They informed the public that since the Town collected the School tax six months in advanced, this money sat in the Borough account without being used by the Municipality. After this convoluted explanation by the Auditor, Councilwoman Kahle addressed him. The following is the exact paragraph from the minutes. The bottom line the Budget was adopted and approved with an increase to the taxpayers. Has anyone noticed that your taxes go up every year? WHY?


Councilwoman Kahle commented that she understood at some point you have to pay it back. Unless there are schools closed for whatever reason we don't have elementary schools anymore. Would we have to pay our money back? For example say we regionalized and shared services and everyone consolidated. Let's just say that we consolidated with another town and for whatever reason we didn’t have that school tax. Would we ever have to pay that back and Mr. Fallon stated he would have to research that.


Well the Democratic appointed Borough Auditor was unable to answer Ms. Kahle, and he is our Borough Auditor? Well that response certainly identified one of the reasons why the Town is in debt for $900,000.00.


There was some disturbing information that came out during this meeting. It was learned that mistakes were discovered in reporting line items along with accounting calculations.


The following is an excerpt from the minutes, in which Councilman Sharkey responded when asked for his vote on the adoption of the 2005 budget. Mr. Sharkey is a well respected forensic accountant and considered an expert in his field. Mr. Sharkey found and identified people illegally receiving Health Care Benefits from Borough at taxpayers' expense.


Mr. Sharkey discovered a huge accounting error for the amount of $282,000.00 and identified $300,000.00 that was mis-classified. And Mr. Sharkey found a donation from the Town’s Auditor.


These are over a HALF-A-MILLION DOLLARS IN MISTAKES.............................................


Who is held accountable for this? Is it the Democratic Controlled Mayor and Council or the Democratic Appointed Auditor or is it both? Who knows, but a change is needed to bring some integrity back into this Government.


Wow!! Wow!! Wow!!. It sure does have the appearance of the Borough hiding money to make the debt look lesser than it actually is, and it has the perception of the Democratic Controlled Town of hiding the uncontrolled spending.


Then a donation from the Town Auditor? This begs the question, is this another "pay to play" donation? All under the Democratic run Town. This entire situation does not present itself in a favorable light to the public.


Councilman Sharkey said he was voting "no" for this budget for the reasons expressed by Councilwoman Kahle and Councilman Gallo. He also wanted the record to reflect the following; before he came on Council he thought our taxes doubled in ten years.


He was wrong, the actual tax increase was worse when you factor in the underpayment of debt obligations which many residents believe is what politicians do to hide the true spending level that they're at. As he started digging into financial records over the last three months he found numerous problems including failure to comply with ordinances and blatant circumvention of basic accounting controls that would protect our tax dollars. We had a $282,000 loan recorded as a grant.


We have a $330,000 mis-classification on the balance sheet between two accounts. We've had people illegally on our health insurance policy whose poor claims experiences has probably inflated our experience and that will be verified with the insurance company. We've had incorrect calculations of overtime pay which we are going to have to pay back, possibly pay back additional money. Will these mistakes end.


Councilman Sharkey said he did not believe they will because this budget does not reflect the corrective action required. Your taxes will continue to go up with the current operation and the way this Borough is being managed. Who is accountable is the key question. He is voting no on this budget because it contains accounting gimmicks that hide our true spending level.


These gimmicks are legal but are not based on sound business philosophies. They include using monies earmarked for school expenses to be used to subsidize Borough operations. He believed this money should be used for school long term improvements such as replacing the schools inefficient HVAC system that is costing and wasting thousands of dollars. Well managed Boroughs don’t need to use these type of accounting gimmicks.


Many of the Mayors and Council members recently arrested hid their corruption in poor management of their Borough dollars using similar techniques. We see another Mayor going to jail for taking bribes. He believed the $2000.00 donation paid by our new Borough auditor and the money paid by our Borough attorney in the extra cost for his services.



THE TOWN IS IN SERIOUS NEED OF CHANGE TO RESTORE THE INTEGRITY AND PUBLIC TRUST IN THIS GOVERNMENT.
CALL FOR AN INDEPENDENT AUDIT TO SAVE TAX PAYER MONEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!