By Steve Waldron
Concern about safety of students walking to schools on the village’s east side continues at village council meetings. A parent asked at a September council meeting if it was possible to have a police presence at the intersection of Lyons and 14th Street at the start and end of the school day.
With a significant amount of northbound traffic from US 131 ignoring a posted detour and instead using 14th Street, it can be an extremely busy intersection. The school has posted an official crossing guard at the intersection during the high congestion times. Village police have been helping during these times as well unless they are responding to a call.
Police Chief Scott Smith has been working with school administrators to coordinate efforts in this area as well as looking for additional ways to improve safety at this intersection. One improvement: The intersection’s overhead lighting will be adjusted to provide more illumination for the areas where people walk across the intersection at night or early morning. It is expected that even after US 131 reopens, and the detour traffic subsides, a crossing guard will remain to aid children arriving and leaving school for the day.
In other matters:
The Council approved Halloween trick or treat hours on October 31 from 5:30-8:30 p.m.
Doug Wohlberg, a CPA specializing in financial statement audits for local school districts, townships, villages, and authorities in Michigan, presented a summary of the 2023-2024 village audit. He found that the Village’s financial statements were accurate, reliable, and comparable to prior years. The Council accepted the audit findings as presented.
The Council declined to approve an audit for the South Kalamazoo County Fire Authority. Trustee Kathy Mastenbrook, the village’s delegate to the six-community authority’s board, said the board discussed findings from the audit. The audit management letter to the trustees identified an internal control deficiency that is considered to be a material weakness, defined as a deficiency or combination of deficiencies in internal controls indicating a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of the authority’s financial statements would not be prevented or detected and corrected on a timely basis.
This finding does not present a legal concern. And it’s not uncommon in small to medium-sized governmental units. But it is a repeat finding which points to a significant gap within the financial operations of SKCFA. To rectify this matter, the auditor recommended that authority hire an internal or external resource to make journal entries and prepare a draft of the authority’s annual financial statements instead of contracting with the auditor for these services.
The authority chose not to take action to deal with the repeat finding, determining that the additional costs of carrying out the recommendation would outweigh the benefits.
Mastenbrook noted that the authority has not presented any documentation showing that a cost analysis has been done to determine whether or not implementing the auditor’s recommendation would be cost prohibitive. After discussion regarding this information, the Council took no action to approve the draft audit as presented.
Ambulance provider agreement requests for proposals have been distributed to potential service providers. The South Kalamazoo County Fire Authority is awaiting the completed proposals, bids for final review and next actions.
Two village residents raised once more the question of permitting golf carts to be driven on village streets. Council members said they’re continuing to work with the police department and will report back at a later time.
