Yesterday, the Burleigh County Commission held its regular meeting and briefly discussed the concerns raised at the January 18th meeting.
In the video above, I’ve compile the discussions of the budget from August 15th, September 7th, 2022, and September 21st of 2022 as well as discussions at the January 18th and February 6th meetings as an attempt to piece together what was going on at the time.
At the August 15th meeting, there was a mention about the reserve fund, and citing of documents. I have requested those documents from the current chairperson Becky Matthews.
At the September 21st meeting there was a discussion of whether to hold off on adding $500,000 to the county’s savings account and pass that along as a 1-mill reduction in the county mill levy rate. The motion to do that was defeated, and in the discussion there seems to have been the presumption that the 2023 reserve fund would increase not decrease.
Burleigh County Auditor Leo Vetter did provide some documents that were issued during the questionable Friday, January 13th meeting. Though they did not come with any context and the February 6th meeting did not reference the documents at all.
One of the claims early on after the January 13th meeting was that reserve funds were moved over to balance the budget due to a misestimation of revenues and/or a lack of proper accounting on outflows. It was claimed that this occured without an affirmative vote of the commission. However, in the researching of this topic, the fact that Burleigh County does not post online the packets that commissioners are given, the supporting documents they receive at meetings, or video of the Budget Sub-Committee discussions - it is exceedingly difficult to reconstruct what happened and if anyone did anything wrong.
It does not seem that this particular issue was resolved or really discussed much at the February 6th meeting.
As I stated, I am seeking further documentation from at least the current board chairperson in an attempt to reconstruct what exactly happened in this whole situation.
I will continue to hold off on making claims or accusations until this puzzle is pieced back together. Clearly, it should not be this difficult to figure out what happened.
One thing is clear, this whole fiasco has put the plans to sink $11 million into the Provident Building on indefinite hold. The commission believed they would be able to afford that project, possibly paying in cash, but now it is obvious that is not possible.
So what happened?
I will keep you updated on this story as it develops.
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