07-31-19 #2 - Laserfiche WebLink

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®CITY OF SOUTH BEND OFFICE OF THE CLERK Jim Bognar, 807 West Washington, stated, Good evening, Council. I want to be brief because I know you folks want to get out of here. The State Board of Accounts provided information to the City on the 17th of this month and sent most of the material down for 2018. I had the opportunity to read it and I was concerned about something here. I encourage Council to go to the State Board of Accounts and read the material for 2018. Mr. Parker responded on June 24th, "The City continuously strives to monitor and improve upon a system of internal controls."This was an issue of the City or at least the State finding out that the City reconciled the bank balances to the fund balances monthly for several months in the audit period which was for 2018. The City could not provide audit evidence that someone performed a review of the reconciliation. My concern is that you have an ERP system that is going in this year. And by reading this, Mr. Parker who was pretty short on the job in 2018 and we're glad he's here, he says that this will be in full use by the spring of 2020. That's when it will be fully implemented. And he believes that by the end of 2019, things should look better. I do think that there's a concern that as we're working on a 2020 budget, what effect could the implementation of this ERP system have? Is it going to be proper? Is it going to work the way we want it to work? I understand we have to update our systems, but we have a lot of challenges.And rather than just stating certain issues that are in here,I would encourage Council to look at that. Part of the problem with the State Board of Accounts is it reflects on what happens in 2018. A lot of people weren't here in 2018. We're now in 2019 and we're talking about 2020. But history can tell us a lot. This ERP system is the foundation of everything we rely on here. So, the fact that we are implementing it right now, and I don't believe it was discussed by Mr. Parker, but we're implementing it right now, and it's critical. Is it going to work? Is it going to give us the data? Is it going to provide the information we need to have? Because that's the basis for all the decisions we make. So, I ask the Council to be mindful of that to be sure that they monitor that. I would encourage you to go back and look at 2018 and look at the State Board of Accounts found. You might find something interesting in there that I did. But I think it is critical to understand the importance of IT and the importance of Administration and Finance to make sure we know what we have and it's where it needs to be. And I thank Council for all their work. I know it's going to be a long budget process, thank you. Councilmember Dr. Davis stated, I just have one (1) question. In terms of these meetings able to be on Facebook, what could we do to ensure that others could see the budget meetings? Committee Chair White replied, I would say that we would need to check with the City Clerk's office to see what that will entail and also contact with the IT office as well. Councilmember Dr. Davis replied, I'm good. I'm at peace. Committee Chair White stated, Again, our next budget meeting will be on August 7th. We will only be looking at Public Works for that entire budget presentation. We do thank all of the department heads for your presentations and for staying with us, and also for the work that you've put in. This is just the beginning of the budget process. I, too, when I saw the percentage that was identified for neighborhoods, I did ask that question. As we continue to work through all the departments, we'll begin to see more of those particular focuses that will come in those particular departments. Again, we have done a lot of work, we as the Council just on this past Monday had a meeting and we began to talk about looking at those particular neighborhoods that have not been properly served or even as one (1) person has stated underserved. Our commitment is to focus on Quality of Life issues but most importantly to align our budget in terms of making sure that as we EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227 W.Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 f574.235.9173 TTD574.235.5567 wwvv.southbendin.gov 18