The Lisbon Reporter

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Monday, December 10, 2012

Municipal Money Machines.......makes cents to us

HIGHER TAXES/HIDING MONEY

In January 2008, when Mr. Eldridge became the Town Manager, the first thing he did was replace the computerized town system with TRIO. This is the same software he utilized in Rumford. After reviewing different aspects of the accounting side, I can honestly say the software is not rigid enough when it comes to accountability. I can understand why Mr. Eldridge chose this software because it allows someone to hide money.

Click on photo to enlarge:

I want to bring to your attention the Carry Forward/Transfer sheet dated August 21, 2012. This movement of funds was done less than 60 days from the budget going into effect. Why would there be a need to move so much money around if the budget was prepared properly? The only reason I can come up with is because they were moving money that was hidden into where they needed it. If this is the case, then this year these seven accounts they took money out of will not need as much money. On the transfer side (at the top) there was $145,406.57 moved out of 7 accounts and moved into 13 different accounts. This is a great deal of money since the town had to raise our taxes this year.

Now let’s take a look at the Carried Forwards (at the bottom). The town carried forward $1,103,326.32. This is in excess of a million dollars. A first year accounting student with a good computer system would have been able to predict this so why the need to raise taxes? This means this year the town does not have to budget so much money into these accounts. I, for the life of me, cannot understand how you justify raising taxes with over a million dollars being carried forward. This certainly should raise a red flag to the town council that possibly there is some really creative accounting going on behind the scenes. Unless our town council is in on it, this type of deception and misappropriation of our tax dollars should never occur.

What is going on with our tax dollars???

Larry Fillmore

Concerned Citizen