Schoharie County 2024 fiscal budget in question
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SCHOHARIE COUNTY, N.Y. (NEWS10) -$8,970,000. Schoharie County Board members say that was budgeted for their employees’ medical insurance. But that isn’t what their provider was paid.
"We are somewhere in the neighborhood, we think, and that’s part of the problem, about $2.2 million over and we do not know at this point why," said Bill Federice, Chairman of the Schoharie County Board of Supervisors.
The Chairman said that more than $10 million is listed as going to the insurance company or other related expenses in the 2024 fiscal budget. The entire budget is exactly $99,348,282.
There’s also 8,500 County checks for ongoing operations that haven’t cleared in its online system. "We must not be getting paid or were they authorized services that we were paying for? How does it tie out to what we have authorized or budgeted for?" asked Federice.
"Anybody at this table not reconcile their bank accounts in their Town?" asked Alex Luniewski, Chairman of the Finance Committee, at the January 2 Board of Supervisors meeting. "Oh, we’d all be in trouble," replied someone. "Yeah. Absolutely," agreed Luniewski.
"I would like to offer a motion instructing the Treasurer’s Office to provide written, detailed explanation of the occurrence of overpayment and weekly update to the Finance Committee in the status of health insurance accounts and reconciliation," stated Luniewski. That motion passed and the Treasurer’s Office has until January 31 to present a report.
Mary Ann Wollaber-Bryan, the Schoharie County Treasurer, sent NEWS10's Anthony Krolikowski the following statement in response:
I would first like to assure the tax payers of Schoharie County that the insurance has not been overpaid.
The actual insurance amount is more than what was budgeted. Most of this is due to the rates increasing more than 50% from the previous year.
Additionally, Schoharie County is implementing a new Tyler Munis Financial System. This is the first year in doing so and with any new implementation, it takes time and is a learning process.
That being said, we have not started the process of reconciling checks in the new system. Manual reconciliation has always been conducted and is still being conducted. So yes, reconciliation of the checks does occur.
Our County has approximately a 100 million dollar budget and the Treasure's office has a staff of 10 including myself. It has been a challenging year performing daily responsibilities and implementing a new County wide financial system.
Furthermore, Schoharie County has an excellent record of fiscal management. The staff in the Treasure's Office is very dedicated and knowledgeable about all aspects of County finances. Anyone is welcome to stop in and ask about any questions or concerns they may have.
Federice said that he does not think anything nefarious is going on. The County’s next board meeting, where they will be discussing the fiscal budget again, will be on January 17.