{"id":1558,"date":"2011-10-19T15:28:42","date_gmt":"2011-10-19T19:28:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=1558"},"modified":"2011-10-19T15:28:42","modified_gmt":"2011-10-19T19:28:42","slug":"kennett-supervisors-public-wrangle-over-right-to-know-dispute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=1558","title":{"rendered":"Kennett supervisors, public wrangle over Right to Know dispute"},"content":{"rendered":"

Monday evening\u2019s Board of Supervisors meeting saw fire from residents over lack of answers regarding audit<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

By P.J. D\u2019Annunzio<\/strong>, Staff Writer, KennettTimes.com<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The Kennett Township Board of Supervisors reacts to public complaints about financial records during Monday night's board meeting. From left, Robert Hammaker, Michael Elling and Allan Falcoff.<\/p><\/div>\n

KENNETT \u2014 Most fires start as small embers, with a single spark igniting the tinder. With fuel added the temperature rises, and if allowed, the flames burn out of control until they blossom into a raging inferno.<\/p>\n

Such is the ire of of at least some of the township\u2019s residents. The spark was born three years ago, with the initiation of Township\u2019s auditing process \u2014 replacing an elected auditor with one hired professionally \u2014 and culminated into an all-out siege by angry residents during this week\u2019s BOS meeting.<\/p>\n

The focus of their heated questioning: why has the township seemingly gone to such great lengths to prevent its residents from seeing the specifics of the audit?<\/p>\n

The supervisors said that their reluctance to release the entire QuickBooks audit CD is due the fact that sensitive employee information (such as Social Security numbers and bank routing numbers) is entered into the fields and cannot be redacted.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I asked for was a backup of the QuickBooks accounting records for the township,\u201d Scudder Stevens said.<\/p>\n

Stevens\u2014who is running against Chairman Allan Falcoff in the township\u2019s Nov. 8 Board of Supervisors race\u2014 is at the forefront of the push for full disclosure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe state said that\u00a0it was public information and that I was entitled to that information,\u201d he continued, \u201cI certainly agree that the personal information enclosed therein should be redacted, and it can be done, probably easier than doing it manually. What it requires is to take a backup of the material, load it up in the program, and go in and put \u2018X\u2019s where the social security numbers are. If there\u2019s anything there regarding personal health or addresses, redact it\u2014take it out\u2026it\u2019s a simple straightforward thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The audit is credited to Ed Johnson,\u00a0 of a company known as SGR & Co. Stevens said he made inquires about Johnson and SGR, wanting to know about how the audit was done, but was unable to locate him or the firm. A further search conducted by The Kennett Times<\/em>, consulting with local Certified Public Accountants, turned out nothing on the whereabouts or the history of the elusive accountant or the company.<\/p>\n

The situation came to a head as residents piled into the Kennett Township building Monday night for the BOS meeting.<\/p>\n

The discussion began with Stevens\u2019 campaign manager, Jeff Yetter, and Board of Supervisors Chair Allan Falcoff exchanging volleys regarding the ability to redact sensitive information from QuickBooks.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been assured by people who are certified in QuickBooks that the information cannot be redacted electronically,\u201d Falcoff stated, \u201cI think the courts will end up settling this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Questions also arose about the current whereabouts and the history of the Certified Public Accountant cited for performing the audit, with Falcoff claiming that the CPA recently retired and left no forwarding contact information.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m confused,\u201d Yetter stated, \u201cYou hired an accountant; you don\u2019t know where he is, and you don\u2019t know how to get a hold of him.\u201d Yetter went on to allege that SGR & co. doesn\u2019t exist and question the authenticity of the audit itself, \u201cIs the audit real?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

Falcoff reminded Yetter that the township offered to disclose a printed copy of the audit with the employee information blacked out.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt 25 cents a sheet?\u201d Yetter fired back, \u201cFor every transaction for the past four years? You really want to do that? You want the township to pay for that? You\u2019ve given us an accounting for the open space which is ludicrous. You take funds from 2006 and apply them to 1998. We want to see the transactions. In your own audit and your verbal presentation the numbers don\u2019t concur. It\u2019s our money, we have a right. We have a right to see that information; it\u2019s public information. We can provide you with a way to do that; we don\u2019t want your personal information, we could care less\u2026we have a right. Will you provide that?”<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s for the courts to decide,\u201d Falcoff said.<\/p>\n

Stevens and Yetter were not the only ones firing broadsides at the supervisors. One by one, other residents \u2014 some attending for the first time \u2014 began to rise from their seats to levy questions on the issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you check out the credentials [of the auditor]?\u201d resident Joe Duffy asked,\u201d And the second part of that is, if you did, then why is this guy so mysterious?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if we did or we didn\u2019t,\u201d Falcoff declared, also stating that he too is mystified at the CPA\u2019s disappearance.<\/p>\n

Stevens rose again to ask why the Board why they accepted unsigned documents from the auditor, to which Falcoff replied that he didn\u2019t have an answer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the first meeting I\u2019ve ever come to,\u201d resident Mike Meacham stated, voicing himself over the crossfire of micro-debates erupting throughout the room, \u201cThe reason I came to it is because there are some questions about funds being mismanaged, and as we hear, we don\u2019t seem to be getting direct answers; and so we\u2019re wondering, is somebody hiding something? What\u2019s going on here\u2026I moved here from Los Angeles where you guys would be laughed out of the county if any of this gets in the press\u2026this is a joke. What\u2019s happening to the money? Our money? That\u2019s all we want to know\u201d<\/p>\n

After an eruption of conversation, the Chairman called the room to order to address the concerns of the crowd as a whole.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe question here seems to be why wasn\u2019t the audit signed and what happened to the auditor\u2026I can\u2019t answer both of those questions,” Falcoff said, \u201cAs far as the money management goes in this township, we are one of the few townships around with a surplus\u2026the money has been pretty well managed here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite this conclusion, many residents were still unsatisfied and many still left the township building with unanswered questions when the smoke cleared.<\/p>\n

The resolution of the situation now seems to be in the hands of the Chester County Court of Common Pleas, where both the Township and Stevens will contend over the complete disclosure the records.<\/p>\n

To learn more about the history of the audit, see http:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=1479<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Monday evening\u2019s Board of Supervisors meeting saw fire from residents over lack of answers regarding audit By P.J. D\u2019Annunzio, Staff Writer, KennettTimes.com KENNETT \u2014 Most fires start as small embers, with a single spark igniting the tinder. With fuel added the temperature rises, and if allowed, the flames burn out of control until they blossom […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[266,38,55,271,178],"class_list":["post-1558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","tag-audit","tag-election-2011","tag-kennett","tag-right-to-know","tag-township-supervisors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}