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City tried to stop loader order
Jan 05, 2009 (Daily Iowegian - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
Centerville Mayor Marsha Mitchell on Wednesday said the city attempted to stop the construction of a nearly $85,000 loader the council approved to purchase in October.
The way the City Council purchased the John Deere loader from Murphy Tractor and Equipment spurred council member Kris Koestner to inform the state auditor's office. Subsequently, in an email sent to the city by Susan Battani, director of the Financial Audit Division with the state auditors office, she expressed the state's concern that the council made a major purchase without a quorum present in open session.
"In addition, the city's spending policy does not appear to authorize individual council members to approve and/or order city equipment or any other city purchases," writes Battani in her Nov. 25 email.
Mitchell acknowledged the city was aware of the concerns coming from the auditor's office and tried to take corrective action.
"We've looked at all of that and we even tried to stop the order on the loader, but we could not because it had already been started and the company we ordered it from had already started accumulating bills relating to its construction," Mitchell said. "We're locked into it and at this point we could not get out of it without them (Murphy Tractor) taking legal action."
Mitchell was not sure if the city had informed the auditor's office of the city's efforts to correct the situation.
Battani in late December said she had yet to hear back from the city and how they planned to handle the situation.
"I was looking for some kind of response, whether it's a phone call or an email on how they're going to handle this," Battani said. "The mayor indicated to me...when I talked with her on the 25th...is that she told me that they need a policy...they'll do a policy and we talked about a number of issues but I believe that they were also going to consider whether or not they need to contact their city attorney."
Battani said she had no time frame for the city to address the issue. What the auditor's office does in the future if the city fails to adequately address the concerns varies, she said.
"Typically we can just continue to communicate," Battani said. "We could ask their private auditors to look into this and address it during their audit."
A third option Battani raised was the auditor's office could look into the loader issue if they decide to follow through with a petition asking for a reaudit of the city and Appanoose County on the way the 1 percent Local Option Sales Tax was being spent.
Battani said she didn't doubt the council members who approved the acqusition of the loader thought they had the right to do what they did.
"And I don't know what triggered those two individuals to proceed with that. What I was trying to avoid was...and I hate to use the word illegal, but inappropriate acquisition of equipment without proper protocol, proper legal process," she said.
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