By Jef Rietsma
Vicksburg Village Council at its September meeting voted against approval of the annual audit of the South Kalamazoo County Fire Authority.
Two nights later, the authority’s board deadlocked on the approval issue, 3-3, rejecting it.
Vicksburg Village Council member Carl Keller – the village’s representative on the six-member authority board – said the impasse is unfortunate.
He provided context during Vicksburg Village Council’s Sept. 16 meeting.
“Nobody’s being accused on any improprieties, this has nothing to do with the firefighters … this is all about the administrative bookkeeping,” he said. “If we had this similar (accounting) process with the village, we would probably be looking for a new village manager because this would not be acceptable. Our citizens wouldn’t put up with it and we wouldn’t put up with it. Something’s got to change.”
Fully understanding the issue might require advanced knowledge of accounting methods. Nonetheless, Keller laid out the situation. He said a representative from Kalamazoo-based accounting firm Siegfried Crandall appeared at the SKCFA’s August meeting to give an audit report.
“He basically stated that when they do the audit, they have to go through and take all the information that they’re given from the authority and change it into the general-accounting principles that every accountant uses,” Keller said. “It requires a lot of time to do that. If it was being done up front, then it’s an easy thing.”
Council president Tim Frisbie said correcting the area of concern should be done before the council reconsiders its decision.
“There’s some weaknesses in (the audit) that I personally believe we can tighten up pretty easily and without a lot of financial burden on the taxpayers, and at the end of the year, it’s going to make the auditing procedure much easier,” Frisbie said, explaining what he considers a viable correction.
He proposed securing the services of a professional accounting firm to conduct a monthly or, at least, a quarterly audit.
During a Sept. 23 phone interview, Keller elaborated on the issue, including details of the authority’s Sept. 18 meeting. He said in addition to Vicksburg’s nay vote, the village of Schoolcraft’s council and Schoolcraft township’s board also declined to endorse the audit. Prairie Ronde, Brady and Wakeshma townships voted in favor.
“There’s an audit comment that comes up every year (that centers on) cash-based accounting instead of accrual,” he said. “The auditor was there last month and he said when they do the audit, they have to go through and transpose everything to general-accounting principles – how they’re generally accepted – and that takes some time to do.”
“This isn’t a ma-and-pa dime store, this is a multi-million-dollar governmental entity, and we need to start doing things that are more in line with general accounting principles and make things as transparent as possible,” he said. “I really think we need to have an outside source do the books (quarterly).”
He reiterated that nobody is pointing a finger or being accused of wrongdoing.
“We’re just looking to move forward. Period,” he said. “That’s the bottom line.”
In other action, Vicksburg Village Manager Jim Mallery announced a public open house of the new village office will take place Oct. 21, prior to the council’s 7 p.m. meeting.
