Towns, land banks fail to reveal finances
Staff writer
There’s good news and bad news this week regarding the public’s right to know.
After nearly a decade of failing to comply with state law, Peabody this week is revealing to the public the cash balances in each of its city funds and how much it received in and spent from each of those funds during the year that just ended.
The county itself and its three second-class cities — Florence, Hillsboro, and Marion — also have complied with the same law, KSA 12-1608, which in their case requires quarterly rather than annual reports.
But the county’s remaining third-class cities — Burns, Durham, Goessel, Lehigh, Lincolnville, Lost Springs, Ramona, and Tampa — all appear to have ignored the statutory deadline for arranging newspaper publication of their finances no later than Jan. 31.
The county did comply last week with a separate state law, KSA 12-5903, mandating that it publish by Jan. 31 an inventory of all property held in its land bank.
Not included was any mention, required by the same law, of any receipts or disbursements of land-bank money and any other property transactions during the year.
None of the county’s second-class cities, all of which have land banks, appear to have complied with the law regarding inventories and transactions.
Overall, among cities, the reports indicate that Marion spent and received the most money — nearly twice as much as any other city — while Hillsboro had the most money in the bank at year’s end.
Although considerably different in size, Peabody and Hillsboro each reported spending and receiving roughly comparable amounts.
Florence’s expenditures and receipts were much smaller, but unlike the other cities, it had far more in the bank than it either spent or received during the last quarter.
Florence last week reported taking in $204,949.34 and spending $224,998.88 in the fourth quarter, with a current balance of $1,038,823.46 in its funds.
Peabody this week reports taking in $3,515,995.53, spending $2,773,649.11 last year and having a $2,297,849.42 bank balance at year’s end.
Marion this week reports taking in $7,901,867.98, spending $8,123,237.16 last year, and having $1,519,326.54 in the bank at year’s end.
Hillsboro this week reports taking in $2,897,039.42 and spending $3,015,016.92 last quarter, and having $2,903,114.40 in the bank at year’s end.
Hillsboro, Marion, and Florence also list their indebtedness.
Hillsboro has $9,777,000.00 in bonded debt and $2,340,300.37 in lease-purchase debt.
Marion has much less in lease-purchases — $40,191.44 — but only a somewhat smaller amount in other debt — $7,384,916.48 in general obligation bonds and project loans.
Florence did not list any bonded indebtedness but did list $70,697.58 in lease-purchase debt.
In initial versions of its report, Peabody actually supplied far more information than was required — monthly as well as annual receipts, expenditures, and balances.
A clerical error in which $12,832.50 in spending for the city’s streetscape project accidentally was omitted from a spending column was corrected after being noticed by the newspaper.
Property taxes account for only a small portion of each of the cities’ budgets.