by Tracy McCue, Sumner Newscow — The depletion of the City of Wellington utility reserve fund has raised more than a few eyebrows (see story here), and councilman Jim Valentine’s motion for an independent audit may have raised a few more.

Jim Valentine

On a night for which he was re-elected for another four years, Valentine during the council correspondence portion of Tuesday’s meeting made a formal motion:

“I’ve got a lot of questions from people around town about the so called ‘lost money.’ So I’m going to ask for a motion for an outside audit of all expenses from 2011 to 2014 including 2012 and 2013. We need to to put this thing to bed.”

The motion would eventually die from a lack of second. But before doing so, it still made for an interesting six-minute discussion.

Wellington council member Vince Wetta asked Wellington City Clerk Shane Shields, if there was lost money, or was this a case of money being transferred from one account to the other.

Shields said money transferred out of the utility fund was used for operating services as was outlined in the making of the 2014 budget. There was $600,000 transferred from the reserve fund for general operating expenses in one year. But there was no missing money, he said. 

“Every year the city has an audit contracted through an independent certified public accounting firm,” Shields said of Kenneth Cooper CPA Accounting Firm.

“Well, you answered my question,” Wetta said.

Shields said in years past, in order to maintain the mill levy at current status, the council was told reserves would have to be used in order to do so with no real explanation. Those funds were used for general operating expenses going to departments like fire and police.

“I think there have been unfair innuendos leveled at the council when we made a conscious decision every year to determine whether or not to raise the mill levy,” said John Brand, Wellington Council member.

Valentine then asked why Wellington Financial Advisor John Haas said in a work session a couple of weeks ago that $1.5 million was recorded as a loss, and when asked what happened to those funds, he said, ‘I don’t know.’

Shields said it is not his job or responsibility of Haas to know where the money went. His job is to determine the city’s debt ratio coverage and the overall financial health of the city. He determined that the utility reserves fund is being diminished, but it is not up to him to know how that money is spent.

Council member Jan Korte said she doesn’t believe there are any missing funds. Council member B.J. Tracy reiterated what Shields said that both the general and utility fund were audited annually and that is paid for by the city. There was no need for an independent audit.

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