Evansville Common Council: Finance discovers accounting error: Council Approves Res 2006-28 adjusting Ret earnings $720,000

Last night at Evansville Common Council, Res. 2006-28 was passed. It reads:

"Whereas, the Common council approved a five-year capital project plan for 2006 through 2010 , which included the ....

Whereas the adopted 2006 City capital budget inadvertently did not include any appropriations for these projects....

Whereas, a budget amendment is required to make the appropriations inadvertently omitted from the adopted 2006 capital budget....

Now, Therefore........Decrease...Retained Earnings by $720,800......"

For all of you who are using a computer accounting program, this amounts to what would happen if you disregarded the very loud "beep" after each check entry and did not allow the corresponding entry to be made. Most systems make this error impossible to occur. For the Observer, what exactly caused this is a total mystery.....

Finance Member Mason Braunschweig stated that the Finance committee has taken steps to see this never happens again. This is good news.

This event is frustrating for those of us who attended all the budget meetings last year. It is hard to fathom that the other side of the entry would not be made.

The Observer is pleased that our current finance director is very qualified and it must be noted that during the last budget discussions the then finance director was absent or sick and subsequently resigned.

So. This was accounting. Not politics. Still the number wsa large. I hope this is a one time story.