Westport town treasurer: Alarm sounds again

Selectmen told treasurer not training to avoid finance crisis repeat

By Bruce Burdett
Posted 2/15/19

Efforts to train the town treasurer and avoid future fiscal crises of the sort discovered last fall appear to be going nowhere, selectmen were told last week.

“I sit here with a huge yellow …

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Westport town treasurer: Alarm sounds again

Selectmen told treasurer not training to avoid finance crisis repeat

Posted

Efforts to train the town treasurer and avoid future fiscal crises of the sort discovered last fall appear to be going nowhere, selectmen were told last week.

“I sit here with a huge yellow caution light,” Finance Committee Vice Chairman Karen Raus told selectmen after offering a progress report on a consultant’s efforts to rescue the treasurer’s office from a 17-month backlog of undone work. The treasurer’s office is required to certify cash and bank accounts on a monthly basis to make sure those accounts are balanced, something that has not happened.

“I am very concerned that the treasurer is not going to learn what he needs to learn so that this won’t repeat,” Ms. Raus said.

That consultant, Eric A. Kinsherf is being paid $65,000 (approved by Town Meeting) to accomplish two things — get the office caught up and train the treasurer to prevent the series of crises from happening again.

He’s making good progress on the first, Ms. Rau and several others on a committee assigned to oversee the treasurer rescue operation said, but Ms. Rau said she sees no evidence that the treasurer is involved in any training.

Two weeks ago, Ms. Raus said she met with Town Treasurer Brad Brightman and asked him, “What have you learned so far? What have you been trained in?

“And he had no answer.

“I asked the treasurer, what is your training plan? How are you going to learn what you need to learn to be able to run this office in the way you need to? If your two staff people were to leave, how would you be able to manage this office?

“He had no response.

“I asked him if he had to process payroll for the town if the payroll clerk left or was sick, are you a sufficient back-up?

“He acknowledged that he isn’t.

“You have to know the stuff your staff knows,” Ms. Raus said she told the treasurer. “You have to be a backup, you have to understand the tasks of your staff and you have to be able to manage.

“He had no response.”

Ms. Rau said she then asked the treasurer to report back to the committee with a training plan by its next meeting. “He informed me that he is going to be on vacation” through February 13.

“I share your concerns,” Board of Selectman Chairwoman Shana Shufelt. She asked, and selectmen agreed, that Mr. Brightman attend the February 19 selectmen meeting with a progress report.

The assistant treasurer has been very much involved in the consultant’s work, and has a been working alongside him, selectmen were told, but “my impression is that the treasurer has not attended at all.” (Being on vacation, Mr. Brightman was unavailable for comment.)

Selectman Brian Valcourt said he finds it remarkable that the treasurer has been on the job four years “and still doesn’t know how to do payroll.”

“I can’t stress enough how important it is for people to come to Town Meeting” and support making the treasurer’s job an appointed one, rather than elected. That change was proposed at a previous town meeting but was narrowly defeated by voters.

“This is the exact nightmare we warned about five years ago,” Mr. Valcourt said. Rescue efforts so far have cost the town $85,000, he added.

“I have heard little rumblings about we are making too big a deal of this,” Ms. Shufelt said. But of the town’s $40 million budget, over $30 million is payroll, another $3 million is health insurance which is processed by the treasurer’s office, and the town is about to have $50 million of new bonding go through there treasurer’s office.

“This is lot of responsibility which is why we are so focused on it and why we are so concerned.”

Racing to meet free cash deadline

Selectman Richard Brewer, who sits on the treasurer’s office oversight committee, said he believes the consultant is making progress ”pretty much as we expected” on the 17-month backlog of reconciliation of accounts.

The pace of the catch-up work is critical because if it is not complete well before town meeting, the town risks losing access to the free cash account on which it relies for a considerable portion of its budget.

Town Administrator Tim King said that the consultant has completed the reconciliation work through October of 2017, but “they still have quite a ways to go” to reach June 30, 2018.

“I hope but am not overly confident, that he will be able to complete it in time to have free cash certified in time for Town Meeting.”

“I don’t have any concern” about that part of the work, Ms. Raus said — it is the training situation that has her worried.

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