(La Porte County, IN) - The La Porte County Council has approved the 2025 budget despite grave concerns not all of the figures are accurate.
In a symbolic move, six of the seven council members also voted to express a lack of confidence in the monetary figures the La Porte County Auditor’s office presented to develop the over $56 million general fund budget.
Council President Randy Novak said getting accurate figures from the auditor’s office has been somewhat of a struggle in the recent past, but this year “everything has been kind of all over the road.”
“The numbers are not accurate,” he said.
Novak said the problem this year reached a point deserving of sending a message about the work of the auditor’s office and letting the public know the reason for financial snags that might result next year from any accounts containing fewer than expected dollars.
“It’s just frustrating to be the council whose job is to spend the money. It’s hard for us to do it when we don’t have accurate numbers to know what’s in the funds,” he said.
Novak said the budget was only approved to meet a deadline for having it filed with the state for a standard final review.
He said there were inconsistent figures presented throughout the summer while the budget was being developed. There was also a discrepancy Monday night when the council was asked by a department head to approve a funding request.
“Their number was $100,000 more than what we were provided by the auditor’s office. That’s the kind of stuff that continually goes on,” he said.
The motion for a no confidence vote was made by Mark Yagelski, who said mistakes by the auditor’s office last year included a 10 percent raise for county employees left out of the budget.
Yagelski, a 20 year member of the council, said money to cover the raise had to be taken from other accounts.
“This budget year is the worst one I’ve dealt with,” he said.
Auditor Tim Stabosz said his office has made some errors with the numbers used for preparing budgets for the upcoming year.
“We’re human beings and sometimes we all make mistakes,” he said.
Stabosz said part of the blame, though, rests with the council. He said the council occasionally supports requests for funding but doesn’t order the dollars transferred until weeks or months later, making the already complicated job of tracking daily expenditures more challenging.
“They reap what they sow to some degree. Can we do better? Yes, we can do better. Have we made mistakes in the auditor’s office? Yes, we have but, fundamentally, it’s the council’s job to look at the numbers and decide what they want to do,” Stabosz said.
Without accurate figures from the auditor, though, Yagelski said deciding the amount of funding to place into accounts for the following year is unnerving.
“I can’t work that way,” he said.
