Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Sun Valley establishes finance committee

Council members to provide additional oversight of payables

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By REBECCA MEANY
Express Staff Writer

To create more oversight of financial matters in Sun Valley, City Council members April 23 authorized the mayor to appoint members to a new finance committee.

Committee members will be Councilman Bob Youngman and Franz Suhadolnik, with Nils Ribi as an alternate. The city treasurer will serve as staff to the committee.

The idea was floated last month, as the city pursued a citywide forensic audit to examine the administration of the city and to investigate potential financial irregularities.

The audit was precipitated by an internal investigation conducted last year by an outside auditor, who concluded that the city should conduct a forensic audit.

This latest initiative is an effort to improve accounting practices, policies and procedures in City Hall.

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"There's no doubt that there's uniformity at council, and with staff and with the public, that the review of invoices and payroll should be done at the elected level," said Virginia Egger, interim executive assistant to the mayor. "What we know is that many municipalities choose to delegate some level of that to a committee or to the staff. This finance committee seeks ... to establish elected officials that are presented with all the detail of every payable and gives you the luxury and the time to go through every receipt, etc., to actually approve the payable.

"Of course, No. 1 goal is to pay things in a timely way, when legitimate."

The finance committee will design a process to review and approve payables and will determine which bills, such as ones that are the same every month, can be paid without council approval.

Rebecca Meany: rmeany@mtexpress.com

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