Just a little over $8,000

The issue of whether or not to pay the full amount of a bill received by the Town of Saratoga from Childress Accounting and Consulting was just one of multiple discussions in the shortened meeting of the governing body on April 7. While the paying of the bills is often a routine matter for most boards, councils and commissions, it has not been uncommon for there to be dissenting votes from members of the Saratoga Town Council.

Following a reading of the account payable in the amount of $109,914 by Mayor John Zeiger, Councilmember Jon Nelson raised a question regarding a check made out to Childress Accounting and Consulting, which has been engaged by the Town of Saratoga to make corrections to the Town’s financials.

“The accounts payable includes an amount of $8,899.15 for Childress and I thought we agreed not to exceed $8,000 per month on that,” said Nelson.

As was reported previously (see “No body, no crime” on page 16 of the February 26 Saratoga Sun), the Saratoga Town Council unanimously agreed to continue their engagement with Childress at a cost of $8,000 per month. Following Nelson’s concern about the amount, legal counsel Tom Thompson weighed in.

“Without seeing exactly the verbatim language on the motion, (you) certainly could pay $8,000 of the total amount and defer the remaining amount until next month,” said Thompson.

Minutes from the February 18 meeting of the governing body read that, as part of a motion made by Nelson, the work to be done by Childress was not to exceed $8,000 per month. This motion was passed unanimously by the council at that meeting.

Councilmember Steve Wilcoxson disagreed with Thompson’s suggestion, supporting the payment in full of the bill from Childress.

“Since Mr. Childress was requested by this council and all of us in here, I think we should just go ahead and pay the thing and be done with it. We’ve got $8,000 and I understand what the motion that was approved before but I recommend that we go ahead and pay this,” said Wilcoxson.

Nelson stated that, though the motion on the floor was to approve the full amount under accounts payable, he was in support of Thompson’s suggestion to pay only $8,000 of the bill presented by Childress and defer the remaining $899 until next month.

“I think we ought to pay it. We hired the man and we hired him to take the place of somebody else and I understand the $8,000 but I also understand that he’s had quite a bit of contact and it’s going to cost until we get done with this,” Wilcoxson said.

“I think we were very clear to him that we would pay him anything up to $8,000. I would support paying $8,000 and deferring the other $800 or so until next month,” said Councilmember Bob Keel.

Following discussion, Zeiger called for a poll of the council on approval of accounts payable. The motion passed with Nelson and Keel providing the dissenting votes. Councilmember Judy Welton, Wilcoxson and Zeiger voted in favor.

The next meeting of the Saratoga Town Council will be at 6 p.m. on April 21 at Saratoga Town Hall.