Hawthorne budget crisis still not fixed

Hawthorne’s budget remained a contentious issue Thursday when the city held a special meeting to discuss how to resolve an imbalance in revenues and expenditures.

Originally adopted by a 3-to-2 vote of the Hawthorne City Commission in September, accounting errors amounting for up to a third of the budget have since been discovered.

Commissioners Deloris Roberts and William Carlton both voted against the budget.  But by the Nov. 11 special meeting, many more people had stepped forward to call into question the integrity of the adopted budget.

Assuring citizens that he wasn’t done reviewing the finances of the city, Commissioner Matthew Surrency went line by line through the budget Thursday night.

“I’m not saying we’re adopting this [the budget], we’re here tonight to ask questions,” Surrency said.

Changes were made across the board, most notably to reduce and account for the $329,000 blunder in which funds from utilities were shown as transfers into several departments but never taken out of the utility departments. 

But even after the lengthy meeting Thursday, the budget was still not ready for passage as there remained some accounting errors, disagreement on how the money would be spent and because it was not fully balanced.

The proposed budget provided at Thursday’s special meeting showed general fund sources to be $1,077,244. The appropriations, or expenditures, from that fund were $1,186,936, leaving a deficit of $109,691.

Commissioners all agreed that until the issues with the revised budget were resolved, they did not want to pass it.

While discussions ensued about how money was being spent in several areas of the budget, concerns seemed to be focused on the Parks and Recreation department. Surrency pointed out that the budgeted expenditure on utilities for Parks and Recreation seemed to be overestimated, putting at least that department in a deficit.

Citizens were also worried that some numbers were only estimates without any rationale or basis.

“There are no absolutes when it comes to revenue like this,” City Manager Ed Smyth said.

Several citizens in attendance vocalized their concerns, not only about the mistakes in the budget, but also because no copies of the latest proposed budget had been provided. There was also no copy of the budget online.  Only after residents complained at the meeting were copies of the budget provided.

Other citizens said they were shocked at the mismanagement of the budget.

“This makes us look like idiots,” Cheryl Elmore said.

Other residents at the meeting even called for the resignation of the city manager.

“You would fire someone that put out a piece of paper like this, wouldn’t you?” Lois Snowden, a concerned resident demanded. “It just doesn’t make sense that [the city manager is] getting away with this.”

Ray Daniel, the man who first caught the budgeting errors, said he agreed. Daniel said the commission needs to find another city manager who can solve these issues if the current manager cannot.

The meeting, which began at 6 p.m., lasted until shortly after10 p.m. as each commissioner sought answers for their questions surrounding the budget.

“The truth needs to be told on all these matters,” Commissioner Roberts said.