GN:I changed the link because a person’s SS Number was included and has since been redacted and in the interest and fairness of privacy wanted to respect that persons rights.
Attached is the Auditor’s report on the Parking Garage that is included in this weeks packet.
A couple items that caught my eye – The final figure of stolen money is $35,422.10.
January of 2009, as the Parking Department continued to add more Kiosks, the Parking Director requested a new employee (Richard Neveu) to be hired by Central Parking as a Cash Collector/Kiosk Technician to do all the Kiosk collections. It appears that Mr. Carney had a personal relationship with Mr. Neveu and that Central Parking hired him on Mr. Carney’s recommendation.
Although he was hired by Central Parking, their contract was never amended to include the Cash Collection or repair
of the Kiosks. Mr. Neveu then began to collect, repair, and report all Kiosk operations.
In June of 2011 another Central Parking employee (Rene Perez) was reassigned from the Central maintenance dept. to help with Kiosk cash collections and to cover for Mr. Neveu when he was on
vacation.
In November of 2010 Mr. Neveu received a verbal warning for leaving a key in a Kiosk on Market St. During the summer of 2011, he was demoted to a maintenance worker after an unattended emptied vault was found on the street and retrieved by the Parking Administrator. Mr. Perez then took over Mr. Neveu’s duties, and Mr. Neveu only filled in as Cash Collector/Kiosk Technician when Mr. Perez was on vacation.
In November of 2011 the Parking Director requested yet another new employee to be hired by Central Parking, the Kiosk Supervisor. Prior to that request, she had been working as a consultant for Central Parking and worked with the Parking Director on the parking convention that was held in Lowell in October of 2011.
In November of 2011 the Kiosk Supervisor began running Metric reports and comparing them to the bank reports that had been faxed to the Parking Department directly from the bank. She found that several deposits from the kiosk vaults were not recorded In the bank in August and October when Mr. Neveu was covering for Mr, Perez. Mr. Carney was informed of those discrepancies. The Kiosk Supervisor then ran the reports back to the beginning of the year and those reports showed that from January 2011 thru 11/15/2011 a total of 73 vaults were pulled and never brought to the bank to be deposited, and that loss amounted to $14,290.55. The Kiosk Supervisor again informed the Parking
Director of these discrepancies. The Director proceeded to meet with Susan Johnson (Central Parking Project Manager), Jim Molloy (Central Parking Financial Consultant), and Melissa McNeely (City Parking Administrator/On Street Supervisor) and drew up the following documents: an employee warning notice, a separation report, and the agreement to pay back the $14,000. These various documents were signed by Mr. Neveu, Mr. Carney, Mr. Molloy, Ms. Johnson, and Ms. McNeely.
In the reimbursement agreement Mr. Neveu also admitted the embezzlement. This information was never passed on to Auditing, Treasury ,Human Relations, or to the City Manager.
The Kiosk Supervisor then ran the reports back to January of 2009 and determined that a total
of $37,292.85 was missing.
Attachment “T” is apparently the “dime dropped” that exposed this situation. That document includes excerpts from the FY 2013 budget. Since the budget was not released until June, it further supports your contention that neither the City Manager nor the Mayor had this input prior to June, and most likely became aware of it along with the other councilors and news media as listed in the distribution on or about June 12th.
There is some interesting information in the packet for this past city council meeting.
In addition to the Auditor’s report on the parking department, there is a report from Michael Herbert, the acting Parking Director, which is very thorough in explaining the issues, documenting a number of findings from his review of the operation, and making some positive recommendations for improving the parking department. He should be complimented for a fine report developed in a relatively short period of time.
There is also a financial report by Tom Moses that is quite positive, and which has seemingly been lost in all the furor over the parking department and the license commission. Some of the highlights from that report are:
1. The General Fund has exceeded the targets for revenue, and significantly underspent expenses for FY 2012.
2. All of the enterprise funds have exceeded the targets for revenue and underspent expenses for FY 2012.
Since some of these budget savings will be considered “non-recurring” we will probably see the majority of the resulting free cash get transferred to reserves. That should at least lessen the pressure for future tax increases to build reserves to the target 5%-10% of the annual budget. And there will be less pressure for revenue increases to support the enterprise funds, with no increases forecast in the 5-year window for parking and water, and only modest increases for wastewater unless new capital projects require a change in plans. The rating agencies may well respond with an upgrade in the bond ratings.
It is apparent the the City Administration and the City Council have been taking actions to improve the City’s financial position, and many of those actions are starting to bear fruit for the taxpayer. The conversion to performance-based budgets and the use of data analysis to guide department decisions probably pay a large part in this government improvement. So, the oft-asked question of “why do we need a data analyst?” may have a very robust answer in the improved efficiency of our local government.
It is a credit to our city council as a whole to have perservered in this direction.