From Lakewood Village Trustee Amy Odom:

“Final comments from an out-going Village of Lakewood Trustee”

Re:  Financial errors and discrepancies raised in the Oct. 2020 financials

Hours of time, effort, calculations and double-checking (by concerned and financially-savvy researcher/resident/candidate for Trustee Tricia Babischkin) went into dissecting the Village financials so that when CAO Smith moved from our old (accounting) system to a new system, nothing would get “lost in translation”. 

When Sue Villie was unjustly and viciously fired in Dec. 2020, that last set of “eyes providing oversight” to CAO Smith and Treasurer Berman (Trustee Ryan Berman’s wife) were removed. 

(In essence, the fox was let loose in the hen house!).

And when those first financials without Sue were presented, there were dozens and dozens of errors discovered. 

I was asked to raise these issues during Trustee Comments and to pull the financials from the Consent Agenda before the “board majority” could push them through under the radar. 

I am not a financial wizard (never claimed to be) but am able to balance a checkbook and double-check alleged math errors. 

And did so. 

Trustee Brian Augustine and Trustee Pam Eddy, taking the detailed list of errors submitted to CAO Jeannine Smith, met with Village staff to review the errors, to also check the math and provided (their) assessment. 

• Several of these errors, upon review by all, were deemed “NO ISSUE” and considered explained and resolved.  
• However, there were still some issues that CAO Smith and Treasurer Berman attempted to explain-away as “re-classification” or “re-allocation” from the old to the new system that should have been outlined, detailed and specified to the board as being different BEFORE “slipping” them into the Consent Agenda for approval…to prevent the appearance of being “hidden”.   (Being “hidden” is a theme I will bring up later…in a separate post.)
• There were also a few issues that were “entered into the NEW system in Oct. with a Sept. invoice date”.
• That means that Sept. 2020 financials NEEDED TO BE corrected and updated to the board before moving on to approve subsequent months.  But no one has seen the corrected and updated version of Sept. 2020 to confirm this was done.  Why?
• Trustee Pam Eddy stated in the Mar. 9^th, 2021 board meeting (after meeting WITH Trustee Brian Augustine AND staff) that “what probably should have happened is once errors were noticed and corrected, the Sept. (2020) financials SHOULD HAVE BEEN RE-RUN”. Yes, Pam…they should have.
• Soooo….where are those?  Did ANY of the other 5 Trustees, CAO Smith or President Stephan acknowledge former Trustee Jason McMahon’s letter (sent to the entire board) asking about the fiduciary responsibility to provide those updated Sept. financials…and how approving ANY subsequent financials would be financially irresponsible? 
• Well, it WAS financially irresponsible to vote YES to approve Oct., Nov. and Dec. financials when we haven’t been given corrected Sept. financials?  And yet Trustee Ryan Berman MADE THE MOTION TO APPROVE this!  And the “board majority” (absent Trustee Doug Ulrich) ALL VOTED YES without seeing corrected Sept. 2020.  Even Trustee Pam Eddy!