City consolidates bank reconciliations

The Tucumcari City Commission during a special meeting last Tuesday voted to consolidate its bank reconciliations so it could complete its fiscal year 2023 audit and not endanger capital outlay funds due from the state.

The move came after the recommendation of Michael Steininger, a budget and finance analyst to the New Mexico Department of Finance and Administration.

Steininger said by videoconference that consolidating the city’s bank reconciliations “does have shortcomings.”

But he said if the city’s audit for FY2023 were not completed in a timely manner, the city would not receive more than $900,000 in capital outlay funds allocated during the most recent legislative session. Steininger said the previous governor, Susana Martinez, issued an executive order to block capital outlay funds if a municipality completed an audit late.

Steininger said the city has a rapidly closing window for its auditing firm, Axiom, to complete the FY2023 audit.

He said after July, it and other auditing firms soon will direct their energies to finishing FY2024 audits by the mid-December deadline.

He said the city’s FY2023 audit still will have findings, but consolidating the city’s bank reconciliations would allow the process of finishing that audit.

“Even if the audit is disclaimed, it will free up your (capital outlay) money,” Steininger said, adding it’s “a small price to pay” and that disclaimed audits aren’t “as much of a problem as it used to be.”

The city fell behind on reconciling its accounts after the previous finance director, Rachelle Arias, resigned and the new director, Hallie Ferguson, wasn’t hired for several months.

Steininger said about 30 municipalities are in the same situation as Tucumcari.

The city has hired Beasley, Mitchell & Co. in Las Cruces to try to get its finances caught up, but the accounting firm had reconciled books only through January 2023. The firm began reconciling city finances as far back as November 2022.

The Beasley firm earlier claimed it could reconcile the city’s books in 10 working days, but city manager Paula Chacon said labeled that as “very optimistic.”

“It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack when you didn’t do the work and don’t recognize the numbers,” Chacon said.

Chacon blamed a lack of training with its Tyler Technologies platform for the backlog in financial reports. She also said city employees are on hold for up to two hours in online chats with Tyler to deal with customer service problems.

Chacon said she would instruct the finance department to reconcile accounts weekly to prevent future snags.

She recommended the bank account consolidations, primarily because “I don’t want to lose our capital outlay funds.”

The New Mexico Legislature in February allocated $40,000 to replace an office building at Tucumcari Memorial Park cemetery, $135,000 for Princess Theatre renovations and $750,000 for water line repairs for the city’s north side. Contracts for those funds are expected this fall.

Commissioner Jerry Lopez voiced frustration with the pace in reconciling the city’s finances.

Commissioner Renee Hayoz moved to consolidate the bank reconciliations, and Commissioner Jonathan Brito seconded. All commissioners approved the measure but Lopez, who abstained.

Whether the city retains Axiom as its auditor for FY2024 remains uncertain. Chacon said she would obtain quotes this week from other possible auditing firms.