Tag: Bay St Louis City Clerk Robert Clark

Transparency again an issue at Bay City Hall

To say we have a few things going on in the background is a bit of an understatement as we have some major technology upgrades in progress to go with everything else thus we have several irons in the proverbial fire. I mention this because I left last week’s City Council meeting with the impression the Administration and Council would be working on a more cooperative level but that appears to be an illusion.

To set things up at 4:30 last Tuesday there was a Council workshop to discuss the audit and the capital improvements proposed to be funded by the upcoming bond issue. During the audit portion of the workshop City Clerk Clark disclosed to the City Council that the DoJ folks were done looking at the Equitable Sharing Funds, of which close to $300,000 looks to have been misspent by the Fillingame Administration on things like fancy street lights for Ward 2. Clark revealed that DoJ was requiring a forensic audit of the program before any further Equitable Sharing funds can be expended by the City and that everything he was telling the council was contained in an email that he received from the City’s contact at Department of Justice. The Council asked to see the correspondence and Clark indicated that would not be a problem.

The problem of course is that here we are a week later and sources on the Bay City Council indicate to Slabbed New Media that despite repeated requests to Mr. Clark for the requested information, he has not sent the DoJ email to the City Council, likely because Mayor Fillingame told him not to share the email being my guess. Continue reading “Transparency again an issue at Bay City Hall”

DOJ-Gate: Never a dull moment in the Bay. The problem with telling whopper after whopper…

Before this is done folks we will have us a real life case study in both financial ineptitude along with the cost of making things up as you go:

Where’s the DOJ money? Affidavits signed by Bay mayor reveal contradictions ~ Wes Muller

I’m going to be bold and make a prediction because I do not think the Sun Herald got those Equitable Sharing Agreements from the City. These came from a FOIA to the DOJ because despite what the Mayor and certain kool-aid drinkers think, most every scrap of paper in our City Hall belongs to the public rather than the man trying to cover up years of misdeeds in Mayor Fillingame.

I was at the August 18, 2015 City council meeting and heard the direct quote from Mayor Fillingame included in Muller’s article where he told lie after lie to the City Council  about the proper handling of the Equitable Sharing grant and those affidavits he swore through the years expose them for everyone to see. Even worse at the October 7, 2015 meeting the Mayor flat out refused to separate the comingled funds while sending his new City Clerk out to bullshit the City Council on why they could not get access to the original invoices they were being asked to approve for payment.

Through time the Mayor has repeatedly presented an infantilized position on why he fails to abide by the financial agreements that he makes for the City.  Earlier this year when it was revealed the City had not segregated the $13/month water and sewer surcharge that was dedicated to paying off water and sewer bonds, the Mayor blamed the city council for not specifying the exact procedures he was to use to handle the funds despite the fact he agreed in the bond covenants to deposit the funds into a dedicated debt service account monthly. Continue reading “DOJ-Gate: Never a dull moment in the Bay. The problem with telling whopper after whopper…”

Stonewall: Fillingame Administration refuses to separate co-mingled funds plus information withheld from the City Council

I guess the low light of the night for me was early on seeing new City Clerk Robert Clark bullshit the City Council on why the Administration will not let the City Council review the original invoices of the claims on the docket they are being asked to approve in advance of the meeting. First, he termed himself “an auditor” despite the fact he lacks the credential to issue an audit opinion and then he told the City Council he could not walk the invoices from the finance office across the street to the City Council annex without getting in trouble with his auditors for not having all of the original invoices, the false assumption underlying this line of reasoning being that his invoices will automatically sprout legs and walk off if he brings them to the City Council Chambers in advance of the meeting for the Council to review. It was pathetic.

But since Clark, who according to Mayor Fillingame worked for a few years at Alexander and Van Loon before spending a few years at Hancock Bank brought up yellow book audits, I figure Slabbed can dispel this myth since your correspondent actually possesses the proper credential to render an audit opinion in the State of Mississippi.

When Jennifer Bell, the City’s auditor, pulls her triple-purpose non-payroll disbursement test (i.e. transactional and compliance testing of the claims dockets), she will require the City furnish the backup documentation to the items she selects for testing (most auditors myself included use a random number generator for sample selection purposes so the results can be statistically analyzed). Copies of possessed original invoices are not an acceptable form of audit evidence for most auditors, myself included, except in very limited circumstances. Auditing Standards Codified, Section 500 explains:

Audit evidence provided by original documents is more reliable than audit evidence provided by photocopies, facsimiles, or documents that have been filmed, digitized, or otherwise transformed into electronic form, the reliability of which may depend on the controls over their preparation and maintenance.

And so at the end of the day, Clark is asking to the City Council to accept a lesser form of documentary evidence to rely on in their vote to approve the claims docket than they give their own auditors for use in supporting their opinion on the financial statements and this despite the fact that in Mississippi personal liability attaches to the Councilmen that approve illegal claims but this is how about 10 minutes of last night’s meeting was spent by the administration, bullshitting the council on why they cant get access to original City records. It was a pathetic display by Mayor’s new City Clerk. They all strongly appear to be hiding something(s) which I guess is why both OSA and DOJ Investigators are now at City Hall.

Towards the end of that part of the meeting I began broadcasting the first Public Comment Section of the night. It took on an Alice in Wonderland quality when a member of the public scolded the City Council for expecting to see original invoices. There is no doubt Joan Coleman is a strong supporter of Mayor Fillingame. It just would be nice if she possessed all the facts before chewing out the council or other members of the public (more on that in a bit). What I’ll do is embed the Video multiple times at different time sequences. I encourage everyone to feel free to watch all 19 plus minutes, which ended abruptly when some kinda of technical glitch kicked me off Periscope. First up the beginning with the last of the discussion on the council’s inability to access the original claims invoices for review prior to voting: Continue reading “Stonewall: Fillingame Administration refuses to separate co-mingled funds plus information withheld from the City Council”