Pittsfield Council Lambastes Department Head; Refuses To Pay Bills
 The City Council is not happy with the process of paying last year's bills in the Department of Public Services. |
The council voted 8-3 against paying $37,620 to 22 different vendors for items and services for highway, wastewater, and utility departments. The bills were from purchase orders from last fiscal year and asked to be paid out of this year's budget.
The negative vote was cast to send a message to Director of Public Utilities Bruce Collingwood that they would like the purchasing and budgeting process changed, calling the bills a "systemic breakdown."
The invoices were held back from the process of closing the books as city officials sought to close a deficit in the snow and ice budget line.
"You just don't hold bills back because there is not money there," said Councilor at Large Barry Clairmont. "It is a systemic breakdown. ... This is not how city government operates."
Collingwood told the council that it isn't "typical" for that many items to be held over into another year. While there are usually a few bills that roll into the next year, many of these 22 were purchase orders in the process of being paid when they were stopped
"We had a bad winter and we suffered deficits in the budget," Collingwood said.
He said the purchase orders were halted so money could be moved in the budget to cover that snow and ice deficit first. Now, with a new fiscal year, the council was asked to pay those bills.
Clairmont called that practice "unfathomable" because it lacks internal controls of the cash flow. The invoices still should have gone through to the treasurer's office to be paid instead of being held back, he said.
Director of Finance Susan Carmel said in July there was a "perfect storm" as the city wrapped up the fiscal year in closing the books.
Carmel said she was closing out the fiscal year and put together a $1.1 million order to transfer from other departments to cover the Department of Public Services deficit. That was approved by the City Council on July 14 and the order had to be submitted a week prior.
"It was a very, very critical time," Carmel said.
The practice of holding back invoices, however, is not something Carmel encourages department heads to do, she said. After the purchase orders are stopped by a deadline, sometimes there are changes that went undocumented or late purchases, which roll into the next year. The council sees orders to pay held-over debt in the late summer and early fall.
"This is a standard procedure that we do come to you every year with various departments. It is not actually late," Carmel said.
The council noted some of the purchase orders were dated as early as April and June, which raised flags on the order. Collingwood said the halted invoices then added to those late bills the council typically approves to be paid out of the following year.
"It is just not right," said Councilor at Large Churchill Cotton. "We've got to make sure this doesn't happen again."
Ward 5 Councilor Jonathan Lothrop said the department had to have known the deficit caused by those bills earlier and it should have been handled in that July order or with a deficiency budget.
Vice President Christopher Connell had another reason to object: the items themselves. He looked at three of the invoices for maintenance supplies and found that a few hundred dollars could have been saved with a different vendor.
"We're not utilizing the lowest, discount price we could get from someone else," he said. "Anywhere we can save money, we should do so."
He said he sat in on a meeting last year with a national vendor offering lower or comparable pricing for many of the items. However, the city never followed through in buying from the national chain.
"This is day-in and day-out operations. All of the department heads have to look at options for purchasing," Connell said.
While Connell says he understands concept of supporting local businesses, that's an individual choice. The city is spending taxpayer money, he said, and should go with the lowest prices.
"There are avenues to look at to save money and we're not doing it. We are spending the taxpayer money," he said.
Councilor at Large Kathleen Amuso had previously submitted a petition asking the mayor to bring in a consultant to analyze the city's spending and find ways to become more lean. That also never happened and she says the consultants would have found that the city could save money by purchasing items elsewhere.
"We also have to look at a $148 million budget and anything we can reduce from the budget, I'd like to do it. This is one way to do it. It isn't painful and it isn't costing jobs," Amuso said.
Carmel said the purchasing is a separate discussion. She expressed faith in the purchasing agent and following procurement laws but she couldn't speak on the purchasing department's behalf.
With the negative vote, that would leave the 22 vendors without payment for services they already have provided. And, the council was quick to table the petition itself so to bring it up as early as the next meeting.
"Ultimately, we have to pay our bills, but a vote against this will send a message," Ward 6 Councilor John Krol said.
City Council President Melissa Mazzeo, Ward 3 Councilor Nicholas Caccamo, and Ward 1 Councilor Lisa Tully were the only three to vote in favor of paying the bills.
Tags: billing, deficit, fiscal 2015,
