Selectman Nick Williams last week called for the town to pay closer attention to privately donated money that’s earmarked for specific local projects and causes and is controlled by municipal department heads and the volunteer bodies that oversee them.
The money in various “Special Projects Funds” is “floating around” and the town “ought to get a handle” on them, Williams said during the Jan. 23 regular meeting of the Board of Selectmen.
“Somebody has got to bring together all of these funds and [say], ‘Here is the purpose, here is what the money was supposed to be used for, there is still some money left over, the purpose has gone away, what do we do with the money?’ Something like that,” Williams said at the meeting, held in Town Hall.
The town’s annual audit defines “Special Projects Funds” as those “used to account for donations from individuals and private organizations to be used for the stated purpose.” They cover funds for a wide range of causes, including the New Canaan Police Department K9 program, Waveny House and garden, platform tennis, land acquisition, New Canaan Food Pantry and Family Fourth. Some of the project names listed in the audit are more generic, such as “Human Services” (fund balance of about $133,000, as of June 30) and “Parks & Recreation” ($41,182).
As of June 30, 2019, such funds totaled just over $1 million, according to New Canaan’s comprehensive audit (see schedule 6 for details).
Williams’s comments came as town CFO Lunda Asmani reviewed Special Projects Funds overseen by the Department of Human Services. Asmani said the Finance Department tracks the donor funds as part of the annual audit, though the money doesn’t fall into the town’s General Fund.
“We pay bills, get invoices … we have an operating account in Webster Bank that is reconciled monthly,” he said.
For fiscal year 2019, the beginning fund balance of the New Canaan Food Pantry fund was about $12,000, according to the audit. About $37,000 came in during last fiscal year, and about the same amount was spent. During the meeting, First Selectman Kevin Moynihan asked whether the town pays St. Mark’s Episcopal Church $14,000 in rent for the Food Pantry. Bethany Zaro, the new director of Human Services, said the rate has been lowered to about $600 per month.
Williams asked whether the funds “are actually on a year-to-year basis being used or are some of these just accruing,” as well as who determines when money is spent.
Asmani said, “Some of these grant funds, because the community are generous, some of these are given for specific purposes. So they are designated, but the department and in some cases if the departments have commissions, they have a role in what gets done, but the department head is the person who is responsible.”
Town Administrative Officer Tom Stadler said that Special Projects Funds are each built around a “specific purpose” and anyone seeking to find out how much remains or what it had been designated for has to “dig in.”
“For the Irwin Park baseball fields. I was head of baseball it’s got to be 12 to 15 years ago, we put $90,000 in there, apparently there is still some left,” he said. (According to the audit summary sheet, the roughly $11,000 remaining in the “Irwin Park-Baseball Fields” account was spent or transferred elsewhere last fiscal year.)
Williams said, “Who is in charge? Is it [Parks Superintendent] John Howe or is it [Recreation Director] Steve Benko? We have this money floating around, and I’m just trying to figure out. You are keeping track from a financial accounting perspective. I’m just trying to understand.”
Moynihan said that the Finance Department is responsible for tracking the funds.
Asmani said his department goes through to check the status of the funds on an ongoing basis.
“We can go back and if a fund did not have activity for two or three years, what are we going to do?” Asamani said. “Are there any restrictions in terms fo what we can do? Can we pull the money out? Can it be re-appropriated?”
Williams said some funds need to be looked at more closely than others.
“Again, the K-9 fund is all about the dog—but some of these other ones, particularly Recreation Department and Parks & Rec, I think we should look at,” he said.