Since the discovery of $601,867.70 missing from the cofers of the City of Demorest, city leaders have worked to implent new policies and directives to ensure a tight fiscal rein over the city treasury. Long-time City Manager, Juanita Crumley’s, position was split into three jobs in December of 2014. Joley Mixon, local CPA, was hired as interim City Treasurer. Since Mixon’s tenure, the City has worked to implement new policies and systems to ensure that bills are paid on time, and that tight control ensure that deposits are timely and are reconciled with revenues.
At tonight’s regular City Council meeting, Austin announced “for perhaps the first time, the City is pursuing overdue property taxes. Some of these account go back years and years of being delinquent.” Letters have gone out to the delinquent accounts this week and a collection company has been hired.
As Mixon continues to work through Demorest’s books, she has uncovered several issues. Last month, several invoices from Bill Turnipseed were uncovered. The unpaid invoices has various dates, some from as far back as 18 months. Reached by phone, Turnipseed noted that it was not that uncommon for some payments to be delayed as “many times, invoices are tied to government grants and then are tied to the payout schedule for the grants.” Turnipseed does engineering work for the City of Demorest. The over $95,000 in unpaid invoices were paid in April. As Mayor Rick Austin noted, “it is good to know our bills are paid and I cannot stress enough what a great job Joley is doing. Our reports are clear, correct and prompt.”
At the City work session on April 28th, the City continued working on the books by writing off $138,899.86 in old, overdue water accounts. Some of the accounts dated back as far as 1998. The accounts were noted in the system as “who” accounts. “I am the Mayor of Whoville,” noted Austin in a lighter moment as he explained that these accounts were never verified as to who owned the property or who opened the account. The paperwork was either not filled out or was incomplete. “It would have been as simple as knocking on a door,” to verify the accounts when opened but that time has passed. According to Mixon, “it doesn’t make sense to keep carrying these accounts over when we know we will not collect.” Austin noted that the statute of limitations has passed for collection efforts on some of the accounts.” “This will be important with our new software system,” said Austin. Tyler Technologies has been awarded the contract for the new City software.
