No proper systems at city Treasury Department – accountant

THE acting City Treasurer, John Douglas and Accountant Edwana Miller, of the Mayor and City Council on Wednesday appeared before the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into City Hall, which heard that proper accounting procedures are usually bypassed at that body.

The CoI, headed by Justice (ret’d) Cecil Kennard, also heard that City Hall is in the habit of budgeting with its expenses always being more than its income. Miller appeared during the morning session of the inquiry and outlined for the commission the proper accounting procedures that an invoice is expected to go through before a contractor can be paid.
The procedures involve the transaction going from the department that contracted the work, before being forwarded to the city treasurer, which prepares the voucher and purchase order. These documents are then supposed to be sent to the finance subcommittee which certifies them with the signatures of two of its members. The transaction documents are then returned to the city treasurer for preparation of the cheque.

However, it is only the city treasurer and town clerk who are signatories to the cheque. “[The finance sub-committee] has to certify the vouchers. The voucher has to go to them before it’s paid. Verify or certify the payment, it’s an approval system. Two of the members are selected to sign on it and then it comes back before I can pay. Then it goes back to the treasurer’s department for the cheque. [The town clerk] is one of the signatories on the cheque. It has two [signatories] the city treasurer and the town clerk,” Miller explained.

When questioned if certain stages in the procedures are skipped at times, Miller confirmed that this has been done in the past. “Yes it can in the sense, it can skip stages. If any payment doesn’t follow the procedure it is an irregularity,” Miller stated. Miller, who has worked with the Council since 1990, shared that she has had cases in the past where she refused to affix her signature to irregular documents.

“If the document in front of me does not state what it is supposed to state, I would say that it is not right and I’m not going to be signing it,” Miller affirmed. She was at one point offered the position as acting city treasurer; she declined because she did not feel “comfortable” in the position. “I was asked and I refused. I didn’t feel comfortable because of the communication of the work between the department. I felt I would’ve been exposed and I would not have felt comfortable dealing with certain things,” Miller said.

Miller, who started out as an accounts clerk, eventually rose to the position of accountant and for one period had acted as the accounting manager. However, in January of this year she was transferred from the city’s Treasury Department and put to work in the revenue office of the City Market’s Department.

Asked if this transfer could have anything to do with her refusal to sign irregular documents, she responded “possibly”. The reason given to her, by the Human Resources Department to justify the move, was that there was a project at the City Markets department that they wanted her to overlook. However, eight months later she is still to be told what the project is.

According to Miller, she has never had any disciplinary issues, and shared that she considered the move somewhat of a demotion, though her salary has not changed, but has been given less responsibilities.

Miller said that she does not believe that the City Treasury department follows proper accounting practices. “The system in the treasury department, it needs proper control. If you don’t plan and control your income your expenses will always be more hence you cannot meet certain requirements, unless you put things in place to control certain things,” Miller conveyed.

Similar views were shared by Douglas when he appeared before the CoI during the afternoon session. Douglas shared that while the city does have a deficit in terms of its income and expenditure, the City should not be preparing budgets in a deficit. He stated that while the city owes billions of dollars, it is also owed billions by the ratepayers, some of whom are in default for as many as 22 years. Matter of fact, Douglas said the amount of money owed to City Hall is actually in surplus of the money that City Hall owes.