Increased revenue, increased deficit?

While the Saratoga Airport Advisory Board recently made the decision to move to quarterly meetings, a workshop concerning the airport fund had been scheduled for Sept. 24. It was the hope of members of the advisory board, some of whom were members of the previous board, to get answers following the audit of the Town of Saratoga for 2017/2018.

The audit, which showed several enterprise accounts in the red, reported that the airport fund had a negative balance of $221,679. According to Wyoming Statute, enterprise accounts are not allowed to show a negative balance. Following the May 20 budget workshop, the airport board began to question why there was a negative balance in the first place.

As the workshop began, Cathy MacPherson of MacPherson & Thompson, LCC informed the members of the advisory board that she had been instructed not to speak about town finances by town attorney Tom Thompson.

“I’ve been instructed by Tom that there are certain things I cannot talk about and so, I’ll respect that, but I’ll talk to you about what I can within the parameters that Tom has given me,” said MacPherson.

She also informed the advisory board that she had worked on the project pro-bono.

“After I started looking at what had to be reviewed and the fact that the town doesn’t have a lot of money, I ended up doing this pro-bono as my 2019 project because there’s no way the town could afford the number of hours that I have spent looking at this issue,” MacPherson said.

While MacPherson attempted to explain the finances within the constraints that had been placed on what was and wasn’t allowed for discussion, it became apparent that there was going to be many questions left unanswered. Ellie Dana-Raymer, who served on the previous airport board, asked MacPherson the reason for the parameters on the discussion.

“Because there has been a development this morning. I’ve been instructed by the town attorney not to discuss anything about town finances,” MacPherson replied.

Eventually, MacPherson contacted Thompson, who gave her permission to explain what she could about the airport fund without going beyond the parameters that had been placed on the discussion. While she was out of the room, the board members discussed their concern as to how the airport fund, which was at negative $221,679 as of June 30, 2018, had gone further into deficit despite the implementation of landing fees.

“I’m not the best accountant in the world, but that doesn’t make a lot of sense,” said Thad York.

“Not only that, we’ve had the best revenue that we’ve ever had, which is also concerning to me,” added Lance Grubb. “with the landing fees we should actually be cash flow positive for the first time ever for the town. The fact that it’s going deeper into the red really makes no sense.”

As the discussion continued, MacPherson was able to point to a mistake made in the accounting of the airport fund. Referencing a balance sheet from March 31 of this year, she explained that revenue should have shown a positive of approximately $560,000. It, instead, showed a positive amount of around $46,000.

“Those checks should have been coded to the expense account. You don’t take them out of the revenues, you take them out of the checking account. Then they get posted to the expenses,” MacPherson explained.

While one issue was pointed out, the airport advisory board became aware that the issue likely went beyond just the airport fund and appeared to agree that an answer may not come until all of the Town of Saratoga’s finances had been examined.