The Indianola Board of Aldermen followed up this week on a couple of items that were discussed during a special called meeting last Wednesday mainly pertaining to over two dozen bank accounts and Certificates of Deposit held or previously held by the city.
City Clerk Angela Goodwin made a recommendation during the latter part of last week’s meeting to have a forensic audit on the city’s bank accounts completed that would cover 2008-present.
The account that received perhaps the most conversation last week was a “Police Escrow account” that currently has a balance of $179.85. Goodwin said the account, which she said is tied to one of the city’s merchant accounts, apparently at one time had a balance of $122,000 and still had former Mayor Steve Rosenthal’s name attached to it.
Goodwin told The Enterprise-Tocsin this week that the banks are currently working with her office in order to provide information on all of the accounts in question.
No action was taken last week, but the issue of the forensic audit appeared on the agenda Monday, with Dr. Phyllis Rhodes, the city’s contracted Certified Public Accountant, stating that one firm has quoted a forensic audit for the years 2017-present for $7,000.
She said she is awaiting a second quote from another firm.
Goodwin told The E-T the city is exploring a number of options when it comes to the scope of a potential audit, so no firm or final plan has been chosen.
During last week’s meeting, Goodwin walked the board through an overview of the last 20 years of the city’s banking history, which includes 25 accounts with Planters Bank & Trust and Community Bank.
She said 19 accounts are active, she said, with two being dormant, 2 having been purged, two being merchant accounts and four of them being Certificate of Deposit accounts, two held at Planters and two at Community.
The account with the highest balance at the time was the Clerk Fund account, which also apparently contained the city’s $2.2 million in American Rescue Plan Act monies. ARPA funds were apparently deposited into that account through two separate $1.2 million transactions over the course of a year.
This past Monday night, on the Rhodes’ recommendation, those funds were separated and then added to the fiscal year 2024 budget as an amendment.
Goodwin had questions about other accounts, including a checking account that appears to have a balance of $119,000 and two others that appear to have been purged between 2019 and 2020.
Those accounts, Goodwin said, had no apparent transactional history attached to them.
The CDs, Goodwin said, total over $3 million, with one valued at $828,000, set to mature on Christmas Day.
Goodwin recommended liquidating the CD, but the board voted to roll it over into another CD for six months.
