By: Diane Benjamin
Remember when I wanted to know where the $5 per month added to your water bills for a future sewer plant is? http://blnnews.com/2015/08/06/stanford-wheres-your-money/
The Town lawyer decided to deny my request on nefarious grounds, but he decided not to mess with the Edgar County Watchdogs when they did the same,
There is a separate bank account just for sewer funds, funny thing is for more than a year none of your $5 per month made it in the account. TWO days after my FOIA request there was a BIG transfer to the account:
The $19,182.38 was in the Water Account. Good thing they didn’t spend it!
Included with the FOIA was a list of all payments made since the ordinance passed in August of 2009. Lucky for me, the list including a running balance. See the pages here: Sewer: $5 per month
The list shows dates and receipts. If the charge is $5 per month, why isn’t every receipt a multiple of FIVE?
The list shows a balance as of 7/21/15 of $79,316.68. The bank statement above shows a balance of $74,642.05.
Gee, the account is missing: $4,674.63!
It gets better. Below is how much was listed as received per year:
Somebody in Stanford needs to explain what happened to the $5 per month since 2010. What happened in 2013?
Not making timely deposits to the Sewer Account deprives the fund of interest. How much more SHOULD be in the account?
Is money collected being diverted to other sources? Are a lot of people not paying their water bills?
Where is the missing $4,674.63?
Chief: Are you turning this over to the Sheriff?
Not only is that fund missing the $4674.63, but I don’t see any interest entered, ever. You are right in observing that depositing the money only after someone notices deprives the account of interest… Unless no interest is being applied anyway.
As a matter of standard practice, the City Manager of Bloomington transfers money between accounts all the time. Oh, the storm water enterprise fund has extra revenue–lets give it to _________________. ( CIAM, BCPA, fill in the blank.)
This is different because this fund was set for a specific purpose. They could not legally use the money for anything else.