Audit: City’s finances improved

By making some tough decisions, Vandalia officials improved the city’s financial situation substantially in the last fiscal year, the city’s auditor said on Tuesday.
However, Dale Timmermann told the city council, they need to be aware that the city will have some large expenses coming in the future.
Timmermann, who heads up the local CPA firm Timmermann & Co. Ltd., reported that the city ended the last fiscal year on April 30 with revenues exceeding expenses by $344,138.
That’s an improvement over the previous fiscal year of close to $400,000. On April 30, 2011, the city had a deficit of $46,055.
“It reflects the fact that you all made some tough decisions this past year that changed your economic situation,” said Timmermann, who was accompanied by Trisha Elam, who performed the audit on the city’s finances.
“But,” Timmermann said, “before you get too caught up in things, you’ve got a couple of things that are looming on the horizon that you really need to be aware of.”
He reminded aldermen that the city has been operating without a city administrator for some time now.
The city administrator position has been vacant since Jimmy Morani left for a similar job in New Baden in February 2010.
The city council hired a replacement in October of that year, but that person notified the city just prior to his starting date that he would not be able to take the job.
After that, the city council decided to hold off on filling the position for the time being as a way of saving money. It also laid off two city employees as part of its cost-cutting measures.
“At some point in time, you’re not going to always have somebody that’s basically a volunteer mayor serving as a full-time city manager,” Timmermann said.
Also, he said, the city will be looking at “some big expenses for the fire department,” mentioning the need to replace the city’s ladder truck.
Timmermann said he’s been told that a new ladder truck could cost about $750,000, which is more than twice what it spent on the current aerial apparatus in 1996.
The auditor also told aldermen, “You have deferred spending money on some thing that will eventually need to have some money spent on them, some equipment replacements and so on.”
“Certainly, (it’s) an improvement, but you’ve got to be aware of other obligations that are still going to be floating around in the future that can make that $300,000 surplus go away in a hurry,” Timmermann said.