Landfill fund audit requested

The Upper Platte River Solid Waste Disposal District (UPRSWDD) is formally requesting an audit of the district’s funds as managed by the Town of Saratoga. The board formally approved a letter to be sent to Mayor Pro-Tem Bob Keel and the Saratoga Town Council during their September 2 meeting in Riverside.

The request from the disposal district comes following a months long wait as third-party accountant James Childress examined the Town of Saratoga’s financial history and new auditors Carver Florek and James performed their audit of Fiscal Year 2018/2019.

Additionally, the UPRSWDD has been asking about funds owed to them by the Town of Saratoga since the acceptance and release of the audit of Fiscal Year 2017/2018, performed by Anton Collins Mitchell.

In a letter dated August 26 and provided to the Saratoga Sun, UPRSWDD Chairman Randy Raymer wrote “The UPRSWDD Board has been patiently following the accounting issues of the Town for quite some time now. Through that process, we have noticed several fund discrepancies that were discovered during the Town’s audit process since 2018.”

In the audit performed by Anton Collins Mitchell, the Landfill Fund managed by the Town of Saratoga showed a positive balance of $105,634. In the audit performed by Carver Florek and James, the Landfill Fund showed a positive balance of $50,050. In the past, as Childress has presented updates to the Saratoga Town Council on the progress in reconciling the various enterprise and proprietary funds managed by the Town of Saratoga, Raymer has asked about the positive balance and that it be remitted to the district.

“This letter shall serve the purpose of requesting a paper trail of the Town’s audit process and an accounting of all funds that were billed, collected and all accounts receivable,” continued the letter. “Specifically, in 2018, the Town’s books showed the landfill fund to have $105,000 to which the ACM (Anton Collins Mitchell) auditor and the town clerk (Suzie Cox) could not explain. In 2019, that fund had grown to $172,000 and then, at some point, to $196,000. At the end of the Childress Report, the fund had shrank to $51,000 without any money being dispensed to the landfill.”

The letter ended by reminding the Saratoga Town Council that the Town of Saratoga had, up until July 1, a contract since the formation of the UPRSWDD in 1991 that “all funds collected by the Town were to be remitted to the district.”

It has not just been the district that has questioned these changes. As was reported previously (see “Questioning changes” on page 1 of the April 29 Saratoga Sun), Councilmember Jon Nelson had questioned the changes in the landfill fund between March and April in which the balance had been reduced from $125,000 to $54,000. 

While the landfill fund has been a point of concern, it has been discussed little since the Saratoga Town Council tasked Childress with examining the landfill fund in February. In past meetings, when the fund balance has been questioned, Childress had stated the positive balance was due to the fund not being reconciled at the end of the fiscal year. Raymer and the rest of the UPRSWDD, however, have not appeared to accept this explanation.

The continuing positive fund balance shown by the Town of Saratoga was, in fact, the primary reason behind the district taking over its own billing for the Saratoga area effective July 1, 2020.

The next meeting of the Upper Platte River Solid Waste Disposal District will be at 7 p.m. on October 7 at the Platte Valley Community Center in Saratoga.