I'm glad to have you back at my blog. Let me first apologize for not posting sooner after last week's meeting. With the National Elections fast approaching and an increase in personal life activity, it has been a chore to get everything done recently. I do have a very important matter to inform you about, and I hope that you will take some time to consider these points herein, and to garner attention to the facts at hand.
At the October 24th meeting, Council received communications from the Hanover Borough pertaining to the Hanover Area Regional Wastewater Treatment Facility's budgeting, payment and auditing methods. The communication outlines how, for the past 25 years, the Borough has figured these numbers. It also states that some of these calculations and methods are NOT in exact conformance with the Inter-municipal Agreement which all municipalities involved signed on November 15, 1982.
Specifically, the document tells us there are three areas which the auditors informed the Borough of Hanover were not being followed, and they were instructed to inform the municipalities. Those areas are:
1) The Regional Plant funds are being audited as part of the Borough of Hanover Audit and not separately, as required in Article VII, Section 7.04, Audited Statements which requires an audit by March 31st of each year.
2) The cash balance is being applied as a credit against the treatment charge in four equal installments in accordance with each municipality's flow share rather than being applied after March 31st on account of the next succeeding quarterly installments of the estimated Treatment Charge, in chronological order there-of as stated in Article VII, Section 7.05, Payment of Final Charge; Credit for Over-payments.
3) The conveyance system charge is being distributed amongst the municipalities based on their respective capital constributions to construct the conveyance system and pump station rather than being distributed based on the actual flow contribution from each municipality into the respective sections of the interceptor system and the pump station as stipulated in Article VI, Seciton 6.01, Treatment Charge.
As this was a notification from the auditors to the proper procedures to be utilized, which were not in standing with the original agreement, and as it has somehow taken 25 years to identify this anomoly, I had a few questions of my own. Listed under the same numbers as above, the questions I posed were as such:
1) Is each municipality to audit their share each year or is Hanover responsible to do so? I was told that Hanover is to do the audit, but that each municipality is to be audited separately. To date, Hanover has lumped this audit all into one report. I also asked why have these audits not been done according to the agreement and why has it taken 25 years to identify this aberration? As no representatives from Hanover Borough were present, and no one on our staff or Council had the answer, Scott Cook, McSherrystown Borough Manager, said he would talk with Ed Reed, Asst Borough Manager for Hanover, to find out.
2) I was in favor of the method currently employed in the second bullet point. This seems to be a more efficient and accurate method for this procedure. However, I DO NOT like the fact that "This process was agreed to verbally some twenty years ago when it was discussed by the members of the committee who authored the inter-municipal agreement" (text directly from the document). I made the statement that verbal agreements are not a good way for government to do business and this should be amended in the original agreement as an addendum, or the original be re-written and re-signed. I believe we leave too much open to speculation and manipulation when we enter into verbal agreements in government, especially when those agreements were over two decades ago by people who are no longer part of the process.
3) How does the current method used to calculate the conveyance system charge compare to the charges of actual use to our citizens? If it is being calculated on respective capital contributions to construct the system, which is based on a one-time percentage, it cannot fluctuate for the growth of other municipalities and increased flow from them, which would reduce the percentage of use by the smaller, slower growing municipalities. If the original agreement calls for calculations based on actual flow contribution, then we should respect the agreement, as I believe that is a fair and equitable means of charging for the system usage. I was told that the Hanover Borough DOES actually meter the flow, but according to this document, they do not use it to determine the charges as stated in the agreement. One person stated that we are only talking about a few hundred dollars here, but when it comes to taxpayer money, every dollar counts to me. I was told that I would get more information on this before next discussion.
With all of these questions unanswered, and the fact that I had reached out to several Council members and staff of the Hanover Borough in order to attend their meeting to discuss these questions (I was never given any information on meeting place/times and my questions have since gone unanswered), I moved that a vote on accepting these erroneous procedures be tabled until such time that we can get those answers.
The Council has also been presented with a budget for the 2013 operating year. We will be voting on this budget at our next meeting, November 14th. Anyone with any questions or input may always contact me at councilmanbolton@gmail.com, or can grab me while I'm out for a run.
I hope to see everyone at the polls on Tuesday. It is less important to me for whom you vote as it is that you exercise your right to pick our leaders. A choice not made is a choice in itself, but I truly believe that we get it right more often when more of those who have a say stand up and voice their opinions. That is the only way our leaders can truly represent their people. Thanks for reading, and check back often for updates.
David "Scotty" Bolton
McSherrystown Borough Council member and citizen
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