There is a breakdown in communication at Indianola’s city hall.
After five hours of aimless discussions, arguing and few meaningful board actions last Monday night, Indianola’s mayor and board of aldermen gathered again at 4 p.m. last Friday for a special called meeting where they argued for an hour and went home with nothing having been accomplished.
The mayor and board seem to be receiving fuzzy information on some topics, and at times, bad information on others.
The city’s contracted accountant Dr. Phyllis Rhodes was present by phone on Friday and provided the board a year-to-date overview of the city’s budget.
It did not take long for several factual errors to be discovered in the document.
Ward 1 Alderman Gary Fratesi pounced on Rhodes, who has been contracted by the city since this past summer.
“We’re a whole lot better than we have been,” Mayor Ken Featherstone said in Rhodes’ defense. “We have some issues, but Dr. Rhodes has been a godsend.”
That analysis just doesn’t line up with the facts.
In last Friday’s meeting alone, there were immediate discrepancies in Rhodes’ budget numbers.
She told the board that the city was overbudget in revenues by $169,000, due mostly to an increase of $165,000 in court fines.
Ward 2 Alderman Darrell Simpson specifically asked, “Is this money we’ve actually received, money in the bank?”
“It’s actually received,” Rhodes replied. “Money in the bank.”
But one shake of the head from Court Clerk Teresa Nolden proved otherwise.
“That will probably be for the whole year, but not since October, no,” Nolden told the board.
She walked over to city hall and retrieved the actual data of money received and how much the city would keep of the court fines versus how much should be getting sent off to the state of Mississippi.
It was more like $9,000 to $10,000 a month, she said.
Twice on Rhodes’ budget overview, she made notations suggesting that the city reallocate federal grant dollars to be spent on things like helping to pay the summer.
installment on the city’s general obligation bonds and also to help with the supposed overtime overage at the fire department.
It should be a matter of concern that Rhodes, who does handle the finances for at least one other municipality, did not know that is unallowable.
It should not have taken the board of aldermen to instruct her on that.
Later in the meeting, when the board was discussing the possible liquidation of its rainy day fund to help pay for shortfalls, Rhodes chided the city for having saved the money in the first place.
This prompted an outcry from several aldermen.
To be clear, the city should not be in the business of overtaxing its citizens in order to save money, but the money currently gaining interest in multiple Certificate of Deposit accounts was saved over the course of several years for emergency projects.
As for the city’s general obligation bond, the city does have a previously-unbudgeted payment of around a half million dollars due this summer.
When Rhodes came on board back in August, she declared early on that the city had no general obligation bonds, only to find out about a month later the city had nearly $2 million in GOBs.
Rhodes has claimed from the start that she was told by former Mayor Steve Rosenthal that all of the city’s bonds had matured, something Rosenthal has denied.
Even if Rosenthal told her that, a competent accountant would have done some diligent fact-checking before taking a $500,000 expense out of the budget.
Rhodes’ Fiscal Year 2024 budget also shorted the fire department $140,000 from the prior year. She told the board during budget sessions that there was money in the budget for raises at the fire department, but she apparently failed to factor in overtime.
And fire department overtime has been the center of controversy at multiple board meetings since October 1.
Rhodes is currently spearheading the transition from the old Delta software system at city hall to a new program.
She has been either unwilling or unprepared to give the board a definitive cost estimation for all of the components of this transition. Based on the fuzzy math from last Monday night’s board meeting, it will likely be above the originally quoted $150,000.
When the city’s longtime payroll clerk retired at the end of 2023, the city contracted with Rhodes’ assistant, Astreya Zachary, to handle payroll until a permanent replacement is hired.
Starting in January, city employees suffered through over a month of incorrect paychecks and had multiple issues with overtime, vacation, and withholdings from PERS and others.
The taxpayers and city employees deserve better accounting of their dollars than what they are currently getting.
Elected officials desperately need good information by which to make decisions.
If Rhodes and Zachary are going to remain with the city, the mayor and board should demand better accounting.
The last eight months have been underwhelming.
