The end of the fiscal year for Coopertown is coming to a close. It ends June 30. On July 1,
2008, a new fiscal year starts. Each of the past three years, the budget has not been ready
and approved prior to the start of the fiscal year. Each of the last three years the auditor has
complained about this and state shared funds have been placed in jeopardy. It appears that
this pressure has finally persuaded the Mayor to get the budget developed and ready for
approval at the June Board meeting this year.

A few things revealed themselves last night during the discussion. They were:


The Mayor’s Police Department has written $1.2 million worth of tickets on I-24.

Even though there are some nine lawsuits facing the City, the Professional Services,
which was over spent this year, was left at $30,000.

Mischarging to budget items is still completely out of control.

Our mayor still thinks that the figures in a budget are, as he so 'unenlightenly' stated,
“they are just hypothetical.” … Last night, addressing the item mischarges, he
sarcastically asked the committee, “At the end of the day what does it matter?”


A huge item that will affect the balancing of the budget this year was not even mentioned; the
traffic fines fraudulently taken from the people traveling the freeway since the first of the
year. Most of those fines will probably have to be returned to the victims. The Mayor stated
that the tickets written per month numbers between 350 and 400 on average. That means
that the funds from tickets for the first six months of this year, some 2,400, will probably have
to be returned ($200 per ticket times 2,400 tickets = $480,000). … lots of money.

After listening to the mayor’s budgeting ignorance for several meetings and almost two hours
last night I left the meeting. No one was able to persuade the Mayor that mischarging items
in a budget is wrong and needs to be corrected. The mayor talked a lot about training for his
police, but never once mentioned training for him in managing an organization. He still has no
concept of what a budget does. When he is replaced this fall the poor incoming mayor will
have his work cut out for him. The Town’s structure is bloated, our budget is a joke, pending
lawsuits could bankrupt the city, our relations with our neighboring towns, the county and
most of the rest of the state are in the proverbial ‘crapper’, and all the ‘pipes’ laying along
the side of the roads will probably still be laying there to be installed. … a perfect storm. …
Lord help us.

Sincerely,
Sam Childs

Coopertownnews

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The first principle of a free society is an untrammeled flow of words in an open forum. Adlai E. Stevenson American Lawyer, Politician.