RUGGIERO CAME IN TO MEDFORD JUST LAST OCTOBER, 2014.
THE NOVICE WANTS TO BE ELECTED TO AN EXPENSIVE CITY COUNCIL WITH:
A)NO EXPERIENCE THAT HE'S TOLD US ABOUT
B)A VINDICTIVENESS THAT IS A HURTFUL TONE FOR ELECTION 2015
C)A SELFISH AGENDA, USING THE PERCEIVED LIMELIGHT (in his mind) LIKE SOME SORT OF EGO BOOSTER
THE CITY OF MEDFORD'S BUDGET
149 DAYS TO ELECTION DAY 2015
Adam Knight never did any work like this, nor has Freddy Dello Russo jr, and guess what, Ruggiero is hoping to get in and do no work but collect a paycheck as well!
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November 3, 2015 Tuesday /
COUNTDOWN TO Election Day
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Blog
Adventures in Budgeting 06.05.2015
Do you know that funny feeling you get when what you know doesn't fit with what you see? "Cognitive Dissonance" is the fancy word for this experience — my sister calls it WTF. Whatever you call want to call it, I keep going through these Medford financial books hoping I am not adding up the numbers right.
Here you will find a zip file with the complete expense, income, and balance sheets for Medford from 2010-2014. Please look through these books. The more eyes on our city government the better.
At first, I was reluctant to release all of this raw financial data without accompanying analysis. An email from Medford's Chief Procurement Officer has changed my perspective. If you are a forensic accountant, please help me look through these numbers. If you know a CPA with an interest in government responsibility, please forward the Medford financial books to them. In fact, any help would be greatly appreciated.
This whole adventure in accounting began with our campaign. Walking through the streets of Medford, some residents complained about the mowing the flowers around graves. These complaints led us research the full time salaries of the cemetery workers and the contract of Groundmaster's Corp from 2011 to 2014. We were surprised to discover the following sizable increases graphed here.
Why these sizable increases in the cemetery staff, we wondered.
Hoping to find an answer, we looked through cemetery staff line item: 010-491-5110-0000-0000-000-0000-0000 in the 2014 expense ledger. However, we didn't see individual payrolls, but rather we found entries of "payroll warrants." Payroll warrants are the lump sums of an entire department's payroll.
We weren't interested in the names of the cemetery workers, but we wanted employee numbers to chart out the expense line. Naturally, I asked for the payroll warrant statements for Medford from 2011-2014 that correspond to employee numbers.
We asked three weeks ago.
Today our response arrived; I quote Medford's Chief Procurement Officer's email:
"to the extent that you seek a document that does not exist, the City will respond to your request by indicating that the documents requested do not exist. You have requested various payroll information. The City's accounting program does not contain a report with the information that you requested."
It is so spellbinding to think that the city doesn't have access to payroll information, it is only possible that Mrs. Miller misunderstood my request. Here is an example of the document I am looking for from the city of Weymouth.
My response:
Dear Ms. Miller, I have been reading through Massachusetts general law in regards to payroll. Chapter 7, page 7 of the Treasurer's Manual specifically states:
A treasurer may prepare the municipal payroll in-house, either manually or computer-assisted. Alternatively, the treasurer may contract out the work to a payroll service through the bid process. In either case, however, the treasurer is ultimately responsible for the payroll function.
Additionally, Massachusetts general law Chapter 41 Section 42 states:
Every such pay roll, bill or account shall contain the following information: First, full name of each employee; second, title of office or position authorized by the division of personnel administration wherever applicable, otherwise title authorized by appointing authority; third, salary, wages or other compensation; fourth, dates of employment.
HERE ARE YOUR QUICK LINKS TO
MEDFORD MASSACHUSETTS ELECTION GUIDE
http://tinyurl.com/medfordelectionguide
CANDIDATES GUIDE
http://tinyurl.com/medfordcandidatesguide
November 3, 2015 Tuesday /
COUNTDOWN TO Election Day
http://tinyurl.com/2015electionmedford
