Cascade of Blunders

City having trouble finding a new auditor.

By Michael Holtzman
Herald News Staff Reporter
Posted Aug 16, 2010 @ 10:21 PM
Last update Aug 17, 2010 @ 12:40 AM


FALL RIVER — The city continues to struggle to find a new auditor to replace Kevin Almeida.


City Administrator Shawn Cadime said the administration is working with a consulting firm to hire a part-time auditor while the search continues. They reopened the application process a couple of weeks ago after one person declined the job and no other candidates brought municipal auditing experience, Cadime said.


Efforts to reach out to those in the job directly at municipal governments and through the Massachusetts Municipal Association have not brought any candidates, Cadime and Human Resources Director Madeline Coelho said Monday.


They, along with Mayor Will Flanagan and Almeida conducted a handful of auditing interviews, Cadime said.
Almeida on July 7 began an $85,000 job as school department finance manager after 2 ½ years as city auditor. It was a slight pay increase, but about $8,500 more when the 8 percent pay cut most municipal officials were required to take was factored in.

He said school auditing has been his goal.

Cadime said Almeida continues to work a couple of hours a week to keep the most recent audit report on task.
Since shortly before Almeida left, the city promoted Stacey Medeiros to the position of assistant auditor, Cadime and Coelho said.


She had handled those duties since Dec. 1, 2008 as the head administrator clerk, Coelho said. Under the union contract, her clerk’s salary of $34,431 was increased to $48,981, the second step on the assistant auditor’s rate, she said.


Her salary since being promoted June 23 was put at the fourth step, or $54,167 before the 8 percent pay cut, Coelho said.


The city had been prepared to hire an assistant auditor in early 2008, but did not follow through after the state began reducing local aid, officials said.

The auditor’s position is one of three in the finance sectors the administration has been trying to fill after Flanagan fired the tax collector and assessor two months ago.

He promoted Ida Geraldes, a 25-year city employee who worked as employee benefits administrator as tax collector. Geraldes began her job a week ago.


A week earlier, Richard Gonsalves, a city resident with nearly 30 years of experience in the assessing field, 18 in Seekonk, became the new administrator of assessing.


In a related matter, Cadime said that David Grab, treasurer and director of administrative services that oversees the auditing, assessing and tax collections departments, had not participated in the interviewing or hiring of the new department heads under his domain.

“Right now everything’s staying the same. It might be revisited down the road,” Cadime said. “Right now David Grab is director of financial services.”


Flanagan hired Grab in March after firing the previous treasurer/director of administrative services shortly after taking office.
E-mail Michael Holtzman at mholtzman@heraldnews.com.


Well, this is wonderful news. The Titticut Follies that Fall River's financial administration has become is actually keeping qualified people from coming here at a time when the economy is still digging out of a huge hole and many  professionals in the field are looking for employment.

This was predictable. Why, you might ask? Because for years the City has had just about the worst possible reputation at DOR and Municipal Finance professional groups in Massachusetts. Believe it or not, ladies and gentlemen, most true public finance professionals are honest people who have an appreciation for doing things correctly, efficiently, and most importantly, HONESTLY and LEGALLY. They , by state law, must take sworn oaths of office, and adhere to a professional code of ethics no less important that any other profession, and I might add, better than attorneys. Given what goes on in Fall River, you would not think this to be the case. But it is the way the rest of Massachusetts' municipal financial officials work.

The Sylvanagan  administration does not plan ahead. They knew many changes in their professional financial and administrative people had to be made well prior to taking office., The "GREAT LIE" cabal involved in hiding the sewer deficit made that clear. But what has happened since?

This mayor has fired those who have publicly screwed up well after their transgressions were known, almost as a political public molification reaction. The firings of the previous finance director, tax collector and assessor were done in reactionary fashion with  little apparent thought to the optimum timing and long term impact of those decisions. There is virtually NO HOPE that the tax rate will be ready any time before late December, 2010. The movement of the auditor makes closing Fall River's financials as close to impossible as it can be. What qualified auditor or municipal accounting professional wants to walk into the auditing mess and morass of financial reports and incomplete auditing records from some other accounting agent? It will take close to a year to be brought into a clear picture, and that's with a very qualified accountant with adequate staff, neither of which will be the case! This is a monumental disaster.

WE have hired a chief assessor from a town which has a similar management reputation to Fall River. Everyone in Fall River feels better about themselves when compared to Seekonk. It is an administrative and financial armpit of a community! It's reputation for political skulduggery is worse than Fall River;'s, if that is possible. Yet a man comes here to replace an assessor fired under duress, and takes a home town discount to do so, to watch over the tax assessment administration of a community with vastly greater number of parcels than the community he just left? Folks, NO ONE EVER takes a cut in pay to work for an administrative  back water like Fall River! NEVER! For qualified financial professionals, a low paying, badly staffed, financially stressed and hyper political community like Fall River usually requires a pay PREMIUM to come here! That, plus a guaranteed contract. Even then, you'd have virtually NO TAKERS.

So then we come to Mr. Grab. Hey, Mr. Grab, have you figured out who the spy is in your office? You know, the one running to a certain member of the FROED Board of Directors, the member who worked so tirelessly for Sylvanagan's election? Can you be that dumb that you havent' figured it out yet? How do you think people commenting on the pages of the HN knew of you sitting around all the time in your office playing solitaire on your computer? And whats' this crud about you not having a hand in hiring the people on YOUR Finance "TEAM"? A man of talent and pride would have walked away over less. Don't even have me try to swallow that jive about you being available to come here with  a cut in pay because of a shorter commute! But then again, you had little knowledge of the situation in your own tax collector's office with money laying around for months on a clerks desk. You didn't have internal reports or a schedule of tax commitment due dates to start asking questions when funds weren't being deposited? That alone proves you haven't a clue and are typical of the people in whose hands this sad City now places it's financial and administrative future . This is one sad tale my friends.

And it's been predictable since Sylvanagan gave those asinine responses about the CSO Fee being an illegal tax. Talk about nonsense and purposeful jive! He and Torres concocted sham legal opinions to make the argument when in truth they had absolutely no working knowledge of any section of public finance what-so-ever! Just because you've worked as a municipal attorney doesn't mean you have a scintilla of a clue about the day-to-day financial operations of a municipality. They just don't, and that's a fact. And the arrogance to think they do, when combined with the level of political hubris they are now exhibiting, places Fall River in the very precarious financial position the City is in currently. But don't expect a word from Sylananagan &Company. They have no clue because they don't know a thing about municipal finance.

All you can expect from the current administration is more hiring of unqualified, politically connected fools willing to bend the laws and rules to Sylvanagan's purposes and the firing of scapegoats for the coming financial failures that are heading unfettered right down the City's throat. The cascade of blunders will continue unabated.  Sylvanagan's utter lack of insight into the City's financial condition is completely frightening and will be his final undoing. One year or two year commitments of grant funds to plug revenue holes will only serve to inflate expenses without providing matching revenues in future years. It's all about avoiding the tough problems today for political gain with this politician sociopath and his buddies at FROED. Just what Fall River likes, just what it's used to.