Reflections - Misleading Ledger (Part Two)

Auditing Still Life

Spence returned from the October 12 township meeting, petted the cats, and said, “Veronica resigned.”

A hoot stuck in my throat.

Veronica, the second French Creek Township secretary-treasurer of the year, managed the overwhelming job by deferring to the supervisors or PSATS for every decision. Though her resignation boded well for the township, it meant the two other elected auditors and I had to balance Veronica’s books—when we finished the books from Zina, the previous secretary-treasurer who kept the infamous, misleading ledger.

“Oh my,” I whispered.

The elected auditors had already worked eighteen hours getting closer to solving Zina’s accounts. But closer isn’t to-the-penny which is how Nancy, the lead auditor, has accounted for decades. Because Nancy worried about the amount of time we were spending on the books, I offered to meet off the clock without Carol, the newest auditor who wanted every penny she earned from the township.

A week later, Nancy arrived masked and covered my kitchen table with spreadsheets of Zina’s state accounts. “It’s got to be one transaction in the wrong place.” Nancy added notebook papers with totals for each of the categories. “We just have to find it.”

Looking for a specific revenue or expenditure in Zina’s books was like looking for a naked hickory nut at the bottom of an acre-wide leaf pile.

And Nancy’s one translation theory didn’t hold up. We found two transactions—a bill marked paid but not paid and a paycheck recorded in the state account but paid with general money. That left an extra $1441.93.

Fingertips dancing on calculators, we checked the beginning bank balances, the ending bank balances, and the three revenues—liquid fuels (gas tax), turnback payments (road maintenance funds), and bank account interests. No problems. Nancy waved a spreadsheet. “The error had to be in expenditures.”

We added them for the trillionth time. Still off by $1441.93.

Butt numbing from hours sitting, I said, “Let’s check the bank statement against her printout ledger again.”

One by one, I read the amount of the check from the bank statement.

Nancy stared at Zina’s ledger. “Yes.” 

I put a blue dot beside Nancy’s orange check and Carol’s green dot. Every amount matched. Wondering where we’d find the error, I put the statement in the folder.

“Wait. There’s one more.”

I pulled the statement out and scanned the list. “All the bank entries are accounted for.” I checked twice more.  “I don’t have another expenditure.”

“There’s another here for one thousand four hundred forty—”

I jumped out of the chair, tossed the blue pencil over my head, and screamed, “Woohoo!”

Three cats scratched their claws into the hardwood floor and scurried to the bedroom.

We’d balanced Zina’s state account. Had we made her general balance worse?

The morning of October 26, Nancy’s cheery voice greeted me over the phone. “I got Zina’s general to balance within sixty-nine dollars. I want you to check my numbers.”

Hours later, Nancy placed her tote bag on my kitchen table. “Gretchen called. She asked me to come over because she had some questions.”

Gretchen, the third township secretary-treasurer of the year, had asked the head elected auditor for help? No wonder Nancy’s voice had sounded so cheery.

Ande leaped onto the table and rubbed his whiskers against the bag handles.

“Gretchen got the computer out. She changed the paycheck that was in the state account and should have been in general.” Nancy petted Ande and smirked.  “Gretchen discovered the books are a mess. Because she’s new and doesn’t want to make waves, she wants the auditors to take the heat for exposing the errors.”

“Great! We can work with her!” We’d already taken heat for asking the previous two secretary-treasurers questions. A little more heat wouldn’t hurt.

Nancy reached around Ande to pull notebooks and papers out of her bag.

Ande rolled then set his front paws on Nancy’s notebook.

She spread the general ledger and the check detail printouts beside the cat. With her pen, she pointed from one sheet to the other showing Zina had recorded two deposits and thirteen checks in August but didn’t make the transactions until September. Those fifteen misleading entries threw the ending August balance out of whack. And that was the month Zina had trained Veronica. I dreaded checking Veronica’s books—assuming we finished Zina’s general account.

Nancy eased the notebook from under Ande’s legs. “I need that. You can have this one.” She slid a folder back under.

Ande blinked but guarded the substitute.

While I checked Nancy’s detailed figures, Ande jumped down from the table and Gilbert jumped up. He walked across the calculator getting a percentage. I deleted that. But in each of four calculations without the cat’s assistance, I found a mistake in Nancy's 406 account numbers. “We’re off one hundred seventeen dollars and forty-five cents, not sixty nine.”

Nancy and I checked every revenue and every expenditure twice more.

Still $117.45 off.

“That ruins my idea of finding the sixty-nine dollars in the December-January transition mess.”  Nancy slammed her pen against the papers and pushed her chair away from the table.

Rills jumped beside Gilbert. The two cats sat side by side and stared at Nancy’s masked face.

I shuffled through papers. Obviously, going over the accounts one more time would be futile. “We need a plan. What should we do next?”

“Cry.”

Taking a deep yoga breath, I forced my foggy brain to think. “We could wait for the October bank statement. Zina’s transactions don’t always clear the next month.”

November 4, five days before the township meeting, I swept the porch, dug out the chair cushions I’d put in winter storage after our first laying snow, and set up three wooden tray tables. Though wind whipped my hair, the sunshine and 66° F (19° C) air temperature made a balmy day for auditing COVID-style on the porch. Nancy and I wore masks and windbreakers. Carol, the first-year auditor, came mask-less and kept her winter coat on. “I’ll sit by the gate. The wind’s blowing in this direction.”

Nancy pulled papers from her tote bag, secured them on a clipboard, and handed them to Carol. “Gretchen printed out computer ledgers for August 15 through October 30. Check Veronica’s state accounts with Janet. I’ll work on the general.”

Nancy plopped onto the love seat and pulled out more papers.

I grabbed the files for September and October expenditures. While I read the company, check number, and amount for each bill, Carol searched for the item on the ledger.

“This is confusing,” Nancy mumbled. “I’m not grasping it.”

Carol’s face paled.

“It’s Zina’s ledger,” I said to lower Carol’s concern. “Of course it’s confusing.”

 

“Actually, it’s Veronica’s ledger.” Nancy’s underlined a questionable category number.

After Carol and I finished totaling accounts and following paper trails, I said, “Everything checks out, Nancy.”

“Good.” Nancy kept her eyes on Veronica's figures. “Show Carol how to balance the state funds.”

“Okay, Carol. Add the opening bank balance and the revenues. Subtract the expenditures and you get . . .”

Carol straightened in her chair. “Twenty-nine thousand nine hundred fifty dollars and seventy-six cents.”

I gritted my teeth. Carol is the most accurate calculator of the three of us, but maybe she hit the wrong key. “Let’s try it again. I’ll do it too.”

Bending over our calculators, we did the math and both came up with—

“The same number.” Carol pushed her glasses higher on her nose.

Nancy marked her place with the pencil point. “What’s wrong?”

I rubbed my temple. “We have over nine thousand dollars too much.”

“Did you check transfers?”

Carol and I nodded like bobbleheads.

“Well they are treated as expenditures because the money goes to the payroll account.”

Duh.

After recalculating, I had good news. “We’re only short thirty-five dollars and thirty-eight cents this time.”

“Did you add the interest?”

I flipped through my notes. “We added the three interests listed on the ledgers for the three accounts.”

“You should only have two. September and October. Ignore August.”

Carol’s face morphed from worried to impressed.

We recalculated and matched the bank’s ending balance. I jumped out of the chair, wiggled my fanny, and gyrated to the beat of the wind chimes which would have earned me a hefty fine and a penalty if I’d been in a football end zone. Both Zina’s and Veronica’s state accounts balanced.

Porch Audit

We just had to balance their general accounts.

Carol left to cook for her church’s potluck.

Before Nancy left, she and I checked general revenues and expenses—ready to balance next time.

But Nancy didn’t wait until next time. Because she had left the two cartons of township records on the log table in my great room, she called daily.

“How many bills did Hillside submit for gravel in September?”

“What was the general checking account balance on August 31?”

“When were taxes last deposited by Berkheimer?”

My answers didn’t balance the accounts.

Wearing masks on November 5, Nancy and I squeezed on one side of the kitchen table while Spence unloaded groceries on the other side.

“I want to check Veronica’s categories with you,” Nancy said. “Then we can add her numbers.”

That accomplished, we calculated—off by more than three thousand dollars.

During the next week, Nancy called twice a day.

“I think I found the mistake . . . oh . . . no. That didn’t work. Never mind.”

“Did Byler’s Hardware send two bills or one in October?”

“Why is the number of John’s reimbursement check crossed out?”

In my dreams, I scoured the ledgers for three thousand dollars.

The next Thursday, Nancy petted Ande then handed me her personal spreadsheets for corrected revenues and expenses. “Grethen printed a trial balance. We need to match the computer’s categories with my calculations.” Still petting Ande, Nancy sat and read the first amount on Gretchen’s printout.

I scrutinized Nancy’s sheets. We reconciled several mismatched items then reached the 406.05 account. Gretchen had $43.82 more than Nancy’s totals. “That number sounds familiar,” I mumbled.

Nancy chuckled. “They do after a while.” She sifted through our handwritten notes of anomalies. 

I picked up the seventy-seven page ledger Veronica had given us and ran through all the 405.06 accounts searching for that amount.

“Found it!” we shouted in unison.

Nancy held up a slip of paper. “You’d written a note that the check hadn’t cleared.”

 

Finger on the ledger line, I said, “In December of twenty-nineteen, Zina wrote a reimbursement check to Dan for that amount.”

Nancy whipped out her folder of township minutes. “Zina reported the public auditors canceled the check to get last year’s accounts to balance. She must have zeroed out the check in the bank account but left it on the ledger.” Nancy patted my back. “You are a breath of fresh air.”

It’s hard to be a breath of fresh air wearing a mask in the kitchen. I blushed but Nancy couldn’t see.

We found two more checks the public auditors canceled but Zina neglected to remove from the ledger. That left $190.60 to reconcile.

Nancy packed her papers and walked to the door. With her hand on the door knob she said, “I’m going to meet with Gretchen next week, have her put all our corrections in the computer, and then we’ll check for that hundred ninety dollars. It can only be in one or two places.”

I waited by the phone. Nancy didn’t call for six days in a row. Was she sick? Did her computer break down? Had her husband been in an accident?

The Saturday morning before Thanksgiving, I decided to call Nancy. I reached for the phone and it rang.

“Hi, stranger.” Nancy’s voice sounded weary over the line. “I spent a whole afternoon at Gretchen’s. We got the corrections into the computer.”

“Do you want to meet to finish the audit?” I glanced at my mostly blank calendar to see which days would work best.

“No. Checking the accounts one more time won’t change anything.”

She had a point.

“The money can only be another check the public auditors canceled and Zina didn’t remove from the ledger or a transaction one of the secretaries forgot to list.”

Nancy was right again.

“We’ll find out which when we audit Gretchen’s books next February.”

Next February?

No more auditing until February?

I hung up the phone and yelled, “Woohoo!”

Ande Helps

 Reflections - I Blame Ande

Ande

I blame Ande. The largest of our cat brothers, he inspired my start-the-day cat cuddle obsession. 

Because I prefer to sleep without three cats playing tag over my head, I close the bedroom door at night. Ande paces outside the door when the box springs groan in the morning. He trots beside me to the porcelain throne, and leans against my legs.

“I’m busy here, Ande.”

He presses his paws on my thighs and stares with Janet-will-melt eyes.

Hands under his belly, I lift him onto my lap.

He sits on one of my legs, stretches across my bent elbow, and purrs. Ridiculous.

I pet his head, smooth his ears, and get on with my business.

Ignoring the plops and trickles under him—not to mention the odors, he rolls to his side and nestles his head on my upper arm. His eyes close and his lips curve in content.

One cat cuddled. Two to go.

Rills, the smallest but feistiest brother, rests at the end of the sofa catty-corner across the hall from the open bathroom door. Water swishing from the bathroom faucet makes his ears twitch. The squelch of soapy hands rubbing makes him stretch. And a towel in my hands makes Rills dash to sanctuary behind the wood stove.

Gilbert, the middle size cat and chief bug-alert mewer, waits in the hall. 

His round, yellow eyes plead next.

Reaching down, I scoop him into my arms and kiss his head.

He rubs his face against my ears, climbs onto my shoulders, and wraps himself into a furry scarf around my neck. Throbbing purrs vibrate his torso. Unlike Ande, Gilbert wiggles to signal he’s had enough.

Two cats cuddled. One to go.

Gilbert Waking from a Nap on the Log Cabin Quilt

Rills crouches ten feet away in the hall, watches me set Gilbert on the floor, then dashes into the kitchen and around the table.

I circle in the other direction. 

He scampers under chair legs, zig-zags through the great room, and disappears down the spiral stairs.

I brush my teeth, wash my face, and comb my hair.

Rills sits in the hall. He eyes me from combed hair to purple slippers. Ambling toward his food bowl, he checks over his shoulder to make sure I’m following.

I lunge for him.

He scoots under the sofa.

“Okay, Rills. I’ll write in my journal, ‘Cuddled two cats. Rills wouldn’t cooperate.’”

“Noooo!” Spence calls from the kitchen. “Don’t do that to my Rillzie.”

Rills chose Spence for favored person status. I understand his choice. Claws out, Rills scrambles up jeans and shirts for attention. Spence detaches Rills and gives him a big hug.

Not as lenient of this feline behavior, I say, in a teacher voice, “Climbing people is inappropriate behavior.”

Spence also attracts Rills with food. Rills jumps to the counter and inspects every swipe of Spence’s knife through chicken until Spence tosses scraps to the floor.

Scooping up the cat, Spence hands his buddy to me. “Rills is a good boy.”

“Rills is the sharp-claw boy.” I detach his claws, pet the squirmy cat, and put him down.

This routine worked for a couple of weeks until Rills ran from Spence too. In an effort to protect his favored person status, Spence stopped delivering Rills to me.

That left Rills, the entire log house, and me. Morning after morning I would get within a yard of him before he dashed away. “He knows exactly how close I can get without catching him.”

“You haven’t made his day until he gets you to chase him.”

Spence had a point. I had to get creative.

I opened the refrigerator door, slid the meat drawer open, and crumpled the plastic chipped ham package.

Rills ran to my feet and flashed I-want-some eyes.

 

I grabbed him.

Another day, I opened the front door a crack and peeked outside.

Rills edged over.

I grabbed him.

Tiptoeing, I sneaked up on the man-cat cuddling pair and snatched Rills from Spence’s arms.

“It wasn’t my fault, Rillzie!” Spence shouted. “She tricked both of us.”

Last Sunday morning, Ande found me, Gilbert waited, and distracted by planning the day ahead of scrubbing pulp off walnut shells and quilting potholders, I brushed my teeth and forgot about Rills.

He didn’t forget me.

When I threw the wet dental floss into the kitchen waste basket, Rills crouched by my feet. Ears at ease, he faced me.

I grabbed his middle.

He pretended to stand and run.

I held him against my chest.

Rills nestled and kept his claws tucked.

Three cats cuddled.

Janet Cuddling Rills

 Reflections - Misleading Ledger

Township Building

Spence returned from the July township meeting, petted the cats, and said, “Zina resigned.”

“Whoopee!” I pumped my fists in the air.

Three furry faces and a bearded one stared at me as if I’d lost my mind.

I hadn’t.

In March the township secretary-treasurer Zina, with a cut of her hand and pouty lips, shouted, “I’m done!” Without authority, she’d fired me and the two other elected auditors. We had worked sixteen hours on her mysterious books—featuring double entries, creative categorizations, and fantasy dates. Zina refused to answer the last three questions we’d hoped would balance the accounts.

Able to talk two of the three supervisors into her suggestions, Zina convinced the pliable men that the elected auditors were too dumb to understand computer recorded accounts. The supervisors voted two to one to hire a public accounting firm.

The firm asked the same three questions along with ninety-seven others, according to Zina, and charged the township $5000. That money could have filled a lot of potholes.

I had whooped at Spence’s news in the hopes that a new secretary-treasurer would input data accurately. Though I’d learned a lot about township finances fixing Zina’s chaotic records, I longed for easier audits.

Nancy, the head auditor who’d balanced the township books to the penny for decades, didn’t whoop. Since township books have to be audited at the end of the year and when a new secretary-treasurer takes over, she schemed. Her pride—she was just three questions away from balancing the accounts—and frugality—she didn’t want the township wasting another $5000—motivated her to get the books for the transition audit.

In the meantime, Zina advertised for a new secretary-treasurer. The supervisors interviewed the applicants and chose Veronica, a shapely, fifty-year-old who worked days in a medical office. Zina trained Veronica during the month of August.

I admit that the training part gave me nightmares.

Before the September meeting, Veronica’s first, Nancy went into action. She figured John, the seasoned farmer who I’d talked into running for supervisor, would vote for the elected auditors to save money. She figured Gavin, the young whippersnapper who vacillated between charming helper and screaming jerk, would support his friend Zina by insisting on the public accounting firm. That left Jeff, a tall dude who sways with the last commenter. Nancy arranged a meeting with Jeff and me.

We met in the corner of the township building, a huge aluminium sided garage. Dump trucks, a grader, a roller, and a huge tractor with mowing attachments took up most of the space. Dust and diesel fumes floated through the air. Masked, Nancy and I sat on one side of the table. Unasked, Jeff sat across from us. To give him credit, he opened the front and back doors then turned on the ceiling fans.

On the table facing Jeff, Nancy laid months of financial reports Zina had included in the township minutes. “I’ve been studying the reports.” She pointed to circled numbers. “Zina overdrew the bank accounts here and here.”

Jeff leaned closer. “That’s not good.”

“I’m within two thousand dollars of getting this to balance, and I know where to look. The money has to be in the tax withholding account. I can save the township another five thousand dollars if I can look at the books.”

Jeff rubbed the stubble on his chin. “My personal accountant told me to take care of the pennies and the dollars would take care of themselves . . .” Then Gavin’s words came out of Jeff’s mouth. “We have to use the public accounting firm because they did the audit last time.”

“The elected auditors did the audit when Zina took over the job,” I said. “Besides, we need to build a positive working relationship with Veronica. All our questions will be about Zina’s work so we won't offend Veronica.”

Table Inside the Township Building

Jeff leaned back. “I’ll call PSATS.” [PSATS is a nonprofit that advises township governments.] He frowned at Nancy’s papers with the circled numbers. “Then I’ll call Gavin, John, Zina, and Veronica. We have better uses for the five thousand dollars.”

Follow up not being his strength, Jeff didn't make the calls. Before the August meeting, however, he conferred with Gavin outside the front door of the township building. Inside, the supervisors voted—two yes, one no— to look into hiring the public accounting firm. At the end of the meeting, when supervisors sign checks and the audience chats, Gavin grumbled, “The people in this township are pains in the ass. I resign.”

The next day, as if given permission to audit Zina’s books, Nancy emailed Veronica requesting printouts of four types for records from January 1, 2020 to August 31, 2020. She also asked for the physical files documenting revenues, expenditures, and bank accounts. An email conversation ensued.

Veronica: A decision was not made at the last meeting on who was doing the audit. I believe the supervisors will make a decision at next month’s meeting.

Nancy: According to psats book sunshine act and the right to know law manual 2016 edition section 703, townships must accept written record requests by mail, fax, email and in person.

If a request seeks information that is stored in an electronic device, it can not be denied. Everything we requested is public record.

Veronica: I believe these are what you are asking for. [She attached four spreadsheets.] As for reviewing physical paperwork, you will need to schedule time with me to look at them. I can’t let you take the paperwork as I’m responsible for it. We can determine a mutually agreed upon time for you to review them.

Nancy: There are three auditors. If you're comfortable, we can use the records at the township building or we could work at your house 6-8 pm nights or weekends. What's convenient for you? We anticipate less than 15 hours.

 

Digital Silence. No “I believe” from Veronica.

 

Still without an official vote from the supervisors, Nancy changed tactics. She asked John, as a supervisor, to get the books and let the elected auditors work on them.

John spoke with Veronica several times during the next week. He promised he’d take charge of the financial records. He promised the auditors would only work on the books at the township building. He promised to cart the books to and from the building every day.

John’s word didn’t satisfy Veronica. She forced him to sign an affidavit stating he took personal responsibility for the records before she handed over a carton of file folders.

 

Nancy scheduled the first work day at the township building for Thursday, October 8 from nine to noon and two to five.

Township Vehicles

Carol refused to wear a mask for the indoor work.

Nancy wore a mask to make me comfortable and let me arrange the furniture.

Placing two tables end to end, I set a chair in the middle and a chair at each end. We propped the doors open and turned on the fans. I requested the chair by the door.

But Carol said, “Diesel fumes did weird things to my brain.” She sat there.

I sat farthest from Carol, and opened the files. My glasses fogged from breathing through the mask. I took them off.

Nancy scooted her chair closer to me.

Carol scooted her chair down the other side to sit across from Nancy.

So much for social distancing.

A breeze blew through the building lifting the January statement for the state checking account off the table and depositing it on the floor covered with enough soil from dirt roads to grow a patch of strawberries. I retrieved the account, shook the dust off, and hoped neither John nor Veronica would notice the slight discoloration and wrinkle. We weighed sheets down with our pencil cases and scratch pads.

Inspecting the state ledger, the general ledger, and seven bank accounts, we checked—

✔Each expenditure with the ledger, paper bills, and bank statements.

✔Each revenue with the ledger, written documentation (when we found any—none of the numerous local tax deposits had the usual paper trail), and bank statements.

✔Each bank transfer from one account to another.

✔Each time sheet for hours listed against hours paid.

The computer could have added the accounts and spit out the balances for us—if the transactions were recorded properly. They weren't. The computer’s trial balances for state and general funds were way off.

At the end of the day Monday, October 12, the day of the October township meeting, we were exhausted. Nancy had worked six hours on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Monday. Carol took most of Thursday and part of Saturday off for appointments. I skipped Saturday afternoon to watch the Jane Austen AGM.

Our calculations came closer than the computer’s but still didn’t balance. We found $20.03 less than the bank totals for the general funds and $2008.93 more than the bank totals for the state funds.

Frustration strained Nancy’s face. “We’re over the time I predicted.”

“They’re Zina’s books. Of course they took longer.” I shoved scratch pads and colored pencils into my tote bag. “I don’t care about the money. You don’t have to turn in all my hours.”

Carol slammed her fist against the table. “I want every penny I earned. They treated us with disrespect. They made us work here . . .” She raised her hands and swiveled as if directing an imaginary television audience to view the road-soiled vehicle backdrop. She picked up her purse, said, “Let me know when we meet next,” and left.

Nancy didn’t pack her gear. She stared at the ledger in her hand. “It has to be one item. One bill we're missing.” She tossed the ledger into a folder. “What will we say at the township meeting tonight?”

None of us said anything.

Carol didn’t go because of the diesel fumes.

I didn’t go because most people don’t wear masks.

And Nancy didn’t go because she fell asleep right after dinner.

Later, John reported that when someone asked about the audit, he said, “They're almost done. Just adding and subtracting the final numbers.”

Besides, the meeting had bigger news. Gavin rescinded his resignation, which was okay with PSATS because the other supervisors didn’t accept it in a formal vote last month. And Veronica handed in her two week notice.

That triggered the third audit for the year—when we finish the second.

End of Part One

Township Sign