Lawana Morse

Absolutely. It is not prepared by the auditor. It is prepared by the treasurer’s office and it can be included in the audit booklet or as a separate document. The auditor would have to review it to make sure it complies with the GASB standards . The ACFR is not required by law to be prepared, only the basic financials are but the preparation of it does represent the best practice of government finance. For those that are not aware of the difference between run of the mill financials and the ACFR, the ACFR gives more detail. You get guided through the financials, you are given statistics and analysis. You are also given a comparison to how the actual matched up to the budgeted. For basic financials you are just given the income stmt, balance sheet, and statement of cash flows and left to understand it yourself.

Bingo

Note worthy, if you look into what the award is, it has nothing to do with the financial health of the county but rather shows that the county is putting together extra reporting during the audit process of financial disclosures in order to receive the certificate. Not being eligible because of the type of opinion issued by Insero doesn’t mean the treasurers office can’t still make the choice to produce the work for the required reporting. As I have looked into what this award means and does for the county, the only benefit to the extra work on an already overworked department is further transparency for the tax payers which can be achieved without the certification. https://www.gfoa.org/coa-award

A few things to weigh in with: The original Novus system was not implemented at the request of the exec branch as had been said by another member of the community in other forums. It was at the request of the then clerks to make their job easier with dealing with route slips. The executive branch can not tell the Legislative branch what software to use to do it's job and vice versa so when it comes to how the exec communicates and get route slip information from the dept heads, he can do it however he wants. Carrier pigeons. Telegram. Chalkboard meetings. Whatever. The Novous system was adopted by previous execs for simple ease and streamline but the clerks had the administrative access. (A comment was made that Moss doesn't like the clerks to be able to see the process until he has finalized things on his end. ) Novus will no longer be supported after July so a new system does need to be in place. Granicus/Peak has bought the Novus platform and in 2022 the Legislature did approve for the Granicus system to be used for the live streaming and web services - but not approved as a replacement for the legislative route slip system. Research was showing that there were too many issues and even though it had bought out Novus, it would not migrate the years of archives over. The blow up of this issue came about due to the exec choosing the Peak system - which maybe in the buried fine print of approving Peak for the web services, had the route slip system included in contract - and telling the Granicus team to not speak talk to any member of the legislative body and to not give the clerks administrative access to the system. The legislative leadership team was looking at Civic Plus already due to the fact that they will migrate the old archives seamlessly, it is being used by multiple other legislative bodies within the state, AND talking with other municpalities that have used Peak, they are making the switch over to Civic Plus because Peak just does not deliver for the needs. Now again, if the exec wants to use Peak to gather the information from his department heads, he is more than welcome to BUT the rules and procedures set in place by the legislature in 2008 state that in order to do business with us, the exec branch needs to follow the rules of putting his information into our system. If the rules said he needed to submit route slips to us on the back of a 50 year old land tortoise that we would provide, then that's how it would need to be done. Not because there is a want of a pissing match, but because we all know there is need for procedures to be set out to keep things running smoothly. Now my personal opinion - I don't care what software is use as long as it does the job. My issue with this (along with others that I am jumping into the hot pan regarding and will be putting a target on my back of being one who does not comply so stay tuned! LOL) is that there has to be communication and collaboration and that is not happening and while this issue seems to be silly and a waste of time/money and taking us away from doing the real work we should be focusing on, this idea that we can constantly be steam rolled into compliance can not continue. And that is why the leadership is making this a fight. And as frustrated as I am, I will stand behind the leadership and our attorny and let them fight this fight as they see fit. We do not have department heads coming to meetings to answer questions. We play the back and forth game and just don't get good information to make decisions. And I'm really to the point that I feel like I need to vote against everything brought to us because of the refusal of communication which would not be in the best interest of the community but as with everything in this world, things seems to be reaching boiling points. I will try to keep popping in and giving my feedback as I can. I'm full throttle in every area of life right now.

Yes. It's frustrating watching from the outside and frustrating seeing it more in depth from the inside - especially when you're damned if you do - damned if you don't. I saw on another forum someone playing the party blame game "This wouldn't be happening if partyX was in control". All I can say to that is a big ole' "B-S". This isn't a party issue. It's a personality issue. An issue of forgetting - or never even caring - why you are elected in the first place. There is blame on both sides and nothing is going to change unless the desire for complete control is abandoned.

Yes access is still there. (I know you've seen the statements from Margeson regarding this but wanted to make sure to answer it) 😉 100% agree.

If you've haven't had a chance to see what occurred at the meeting last night, let me give a quick recap. On 1/8 we were informed by Chairman Margeson that due to the County Exec deciding to change the software being used to submit route slips to the legislature without consultation with the legislature and clerk, that we might not have an agenda for the 1/22 meeting. Margeson had planned that night to make a formal statment but due to the issues with the streaming system, he held off on the statment until last night. During the past two weeks, I have not said anything in hopes that maybe, just maybe, this power struggle could be resolved. I know - a little naive of me, right? But out of respect to the leadership of the Legislature, I sat back. Last week, each member of the legislature received an email from the Exec with a statement from him regarding this issue and giving his side to the story. We also recieved all the route slips and needed information for each. Then we received our normal email from the clerk that the agenda had been upload to Novus. But - it was all blank. My thought was, ok, a compromise has been reached. We have the information for the 1/22 meeting. There was a glitch with Novus. THEN last night happened. The Chairman in passing said he did not receive the email from the Exec. During the opening of the meeting, he gave his statment. I was thrown off because, again, naive assumptions by me thinking we were going to be able to do our job. So - where I'm at. I have a he said/she said side of the story concerning the software so I can not confidently know where the real disconnect has occurred. I see a constant power struggle between the branches that I had been hopeful of seeing progress made given a better starting relationship between the Exec and Chairman. I see the Exec undermining what is considered the legislative workings due to what he has seen as the legislature undermining/trying to control his areas. I see the logic in the leadership of the legislature to not "give in" on this issue because of past events but have the frustration /anger of not being able to do our job because neither is willing to compromise. Truth is, this software could be a zillion times better but since no effort was made to involve the legislature in this process, a process that is set in place by the legislature to ensure a smooth transfer of information for making the needed decisions, we are now where we are. I fully believe in the transparency of government, but do believe some conversations need to happen behind closed doors. I do believe this is an issue that the public needs to be made aware of while respecting that every detail of every conversation does not need to be made public. Out of respect for the leadership of the legislature and honestly, because I don't want to cause more harm than good with this, I did not speak out at last night's meeting. There is nothing I could have said to change what was happening. I am fully prepared to be blasted for not saying or doing something. I already have been. Part of this is deciding what fight to fight. I will not speak out/fight when I am not confident of the facts that I have been given and I will not make enemies of those I need to stand with me regarding other matters. I am frustrated with the leadership in not finding some compromise. I respect that they have been talking to the Exec regarding this and if there was a compromise to be had, they would have done so. I can see all sides to this. My last statment on this matter: we need our Exec to be open to listening and taking ideas and suggestions that are not his own. To understand not everyone is out to undermine his leadership. That this county is a partnership of the Exec, Legislature, and the people for the good of the people.

I’m not a fan of competition hunting but see this is just one step closer to banning all hunting. We’ve seen these slippery slope laws in farming before. Some activist group goes into a town that has no, say pig farms. They get the town to pass some ordinance about pig farms in the town bc no one is there to fight against it because no one in that town cares because it doesn’t affect them. Then that group moves on to another town and another until they get to a town where there are pig farms but now they have this precedent of these other towns to draw on and end up getting a law passed that greatly affects the pig farming community.

I would love to hear some feedback from more in the community regarding the resolution we passed through committee last night that supports an end-to-end audit of the NYS voter rolls. I have heard a few voices for and a few against and all are very passionate in their stance. I voted it through the committee and am most likely going to vote it through on the floor for a few reasons: I see this resolution as a show of support to those in the community who feel like something is off with our voter rolls in the state. I honestly don't think that resolutions from the counties and towns do much to sway the state floor. During Covid, one of the biggest frustrations for me was feeling like concerns were simply swept under the rug. I remember conversations with school officials that I left feeling like I wasn't taken seriously and that I was given a pat on the head and told to run along rather than having my concerns actually addressed. Those interactions made me think there was some stuff going on that shouldn't be. If there's nothing to hide, will it really hurt to put the concerns and fears to bed? I don't see how asking for confirmation that all is well feeds into the "misinformation." I appreciate all the work our county BOE does (there are things they go above and beyond to do that are not required to help ensure our county rolls are accurate), but as I saw while out campaigning, there is cleanup needed. I like to think I am an honest person with integrity and that I don't have a scammer's imagination, BUT I can think of at least 4 different ways how I could commit election fraud. I can't even begin to imagine all the ways someone with bad intent and lots of resources could do so.

Increased payroll taxes being collected at a faster rate and increased worker's comp... so who truly benefits from a hike in wages?

Everyone here knows me as a legislator but my bread and butter job is a tax accountant working with small businesses in the area. Every once in a while there are items of interest that I'd like to get out to the public beyond just my clients because I don't see information being circulated through traditional news outlets. Once such item that has been a hot topic in the accounting world for a year or so now is a reporting obligation that just took effect 1/1/2024. FinCen is requiring any business that has done a filing with the secretary of state (so LLCs, Corps, and a few other types such as trusts and non-profits) to report the Beneficial Ownership Information. This is being requested to try to deal with shell companies and other foreign illegal entities. In reality, the only thing different for this reporting over the registration with the SOS is uploading a form of identification. If you have a business and it falls under an LLC or Corp, you have until 12/31/2024 to complete the filing. (It took me 10 minutes and 5 of those were spent trying to find my husband's driver's license in his hodgepodge wallet.) If you are looking to start a business in 2024, you will have 90 days from filing to complete the BOI requirments. If you start a business after 1/1/2025, you will have 30 days. Anytime there is a change of ownership you have to update the reporting. You can find information on the FinCen website under BOI reporting. (A google search will get you there).

This is what we confirmed before the vote so we were feeling optimistic until Mr Donovan flipped.

These are immediately implemented retroactive to 1/1/2023. So everyone now will be in the first term of the 3 year limit.

That's the only thing I can promise, to listen and to engage as much as I can. Everyone I talk to has something different that they are passionate about and would like to have someone address that topic. It does get overwhemling trying to sort through all the input and figuring out what to put at the front of the line to advocate for. But as long as ya'll are patient and respectful, even when you disagree, I will continue to engage to the best of my ability.

A side note related to this, there has been a bill that keeps trying to go round at state level to stop elected officials from holding a place on the IDA boards. Legislator Chalk spoke to me a few meetings ago and told me that he specifically asked to be on the IDA board because he too was concerned with the amount of time the meeting went to executive session and because he has a desire for the transparency to be there. There are a few members of that board that are new as of 2023. I believe they are seeking the greater transarency, accountability, and to make positive changes, but it is slow going. It is not easy to come onto a board and implement changes. It takes some time. The frustration on the public side is the lack of communication. If the new members would just say "hey, this is what changes I'm working towards and this is what is being accomplished" it would go a long way to create some trust from the public ESPECIALLY when the prior leadship of an organization has caused a lot of mistrust.