Submitted by Andrew Bowman
The York City Council held its monthly Committee Meeting, which provides an opportunity for the city’s various committees to raise matters to the council and petition for those itmes to be added to an upcoming city council meeting agenda. While no decision-making takes place during these meetings, they are still an important component of the city’s administration, as they provide additional platforms for citizen concerns and community needs to be brought to the attention of those with decision making power, as well as to discuss the finer details of how things are done.
The session was called to order at 6PM and began with a guest presentation from Brian Marchuck, CPA of Brown Plus Accounting, on their recently-completed audit of the city’s 2019 finances. The audit was to the United States Generally Accepted Accounting Principles by a team trained on government accounting and was presented in 4 parts. Of these four parts, the auditors issued a disclaimer of opinion for three of them, covering the bulk of the city’s finances and all the federal-related financial activity. A disclaimer of opinion means that there was insufficient evidence available from which to make conclusions. Mr. Marchuck elaborated on the reasons behind this whilst discussing the Report of Internal Controls over Financial Statements and Compliance. According to the auditors, key employee turnover, changes in software used by the city, technical issues with servers, etc. made it very difficult to find documentation and track down the people involved with specific transactions. The six-year gap does not help, but audits are very time-consuming processes, with Mr. Marchuck estimating that the audit of just the city’s finances required about 2000 man-hours. The report also noted late paperwork filing, a need to make sure that the city’s Finance Department prepare financial statements for monthly review, and multiple instances where incorrect information regarding federal grant money was found. As for the other part of the audit, which covered Component Units (Sewer Authority, General Parking Authority, and Redevelopment Authority), the auditors issued a qualified opinion, which is a passing grade outside the issues noted in the qualification. In this case, the qualification was that the Redevelopment Authority did not capitalize all of their purchases of all capital assets (property and equipment), which would have entailed counting certain expenses as assets, allowing the costs to be recognized over multiple time periods rather than all at once.
As if to keep with the theme, the Committee Reports following Mr. Marchuck’s presentation mainly concerned budgetary matters, starting with the Community Development Block Grant adjusting its projected budget rollover from 2024 to 2025 as well as shifting some grant money from Housing and Urban Development around to maximize the odds that the money is spent according to regulation before it is cut. Public Works then made the council aware that Good’s Disposal has made an offer to handle large item pickup that would halve the cost of the original plan to run the operation in-house, which would save the city $212,000. The Police Department then requested $32,000 for laptops to help youth in the Group Violence Initiative enter the workforce and find meaningful employment. The Treasury then capped off this financial talk by requesting funds to seek legal counsel outside the Solicitor to help understand city ordinances and explore options for balancing the budget. All of these matters were added to either the April 1st or 15th meeting agendas.
When it came to amendments, two were proposed. The first to Article 181 is aimed at formalizing the procedures concerning city boards by instating a formal application procedure, an attendance policy, and designating council liaisons for boards. These measures were selected to help make these boards more accessible to the general public and more effective at their mission. Other ideas were considered such as training requirements and term limits, but there was concern that doing so would hamper many of the boards; which are strongly held together by longtime members, who are volunteers like all board members. There was also a desire to create a mechanism for non-residents who are heavily involved in the community to join boards, but the council cited Pennsylvania State law as being against such a mechanism. In the process of writing this article, I was unable to determine the exact law being referenced, but I was able to find similar laws such as the Pennsylvania Municipal Authority Act with similar language.
The second amendment proposed was to Article 513, which concerns parking in certain neighborhoods during the time of events at the York Fairgrounds. As the Fairgrounds grows in scope, the Parking Authority would like to place parking restrictions outside just the time of the York Fair. This was met with hesitation, as residents of these neighborhoods are expected to get a one-time placard from either City Hall or the police station for each year’s York Fair in order to street park, which would become exponentially more irritating as events are added. The Parking Authority expressed a desire to look into longer-term placards to remedy this, and expanded on attempts to accommodate residents by delivering placards to those with mobility impairments and issuing placards on the spot to residents who forgot to get one.
With the conclusion of this meeting, the tone has been set for the next two weeks. These issues will be discussed at the York City Council Meetings on April 1st or 15th. Anyone who lives in the city who wishes to express their opinion on these matters is encouraged to attend.