By Adam Aasen
When Corrie Meyer took over as the new executive director of the Carmel Redevelopment Commission, there was a mountain of records for her to sort through.
One of her goals is to make sure the Carmel City Council has ample access to these CRC documents and to make sure everything is in the correct format.
For the council meeting on May 5, Meyer submitted a detailed report of all the CRC finances so discussions won’t be constantly bogged down with questions about the CRC’s current situation.
Previous CRC director Les Olds formerly prepared such summary documents, although some city councilors criticized his record-keeping. When he resigned his position in October 2013, the CRC was without a permanent director to help with this communication and these summaries went away.
“When Les was here there was a summary of projects and when we were absent of a director the council wasn’t necessarily receiving an update on … everything that’s going on, so this is to bring everyone up to speed and on the same page,” Meyer said.
According to the report, the CRC began March with a balance of $523,529 and received revenue of $719,662. There were expenditures in the amount of $1,281, leaving an end of month balance of $1,241,190. Updates are available on all CRC projects, including the City Center, the Nash Building and The Mezz/Monon Lofts.
Meyer also explained that she is working to change some of the formats for CRC reports.
The State Board of Accounts criticized the CRC in its 2012 audit for the commission’s practice of using an Excel spreadsheet for submitting reports instead of the required forms.
The audit said, “Some of the risks of using Excel are that the unit is not able to maintain an audit trail of transactions and an entry could be removed permanently from the records, without anyone having knowledge of the activity. Officials and employees are required to use State Board of Accounts prescribed or approved forms in the manner prescribed.”
Meyer said they will change this practice.
“With the clerk-treasurer’s office now serving as our treasurer, we will certainly rely on her to make sure all of our forms and documents are kept on the correct format,” she said.
At the same time, Meyer contends that it is perfectly fine to continue to use Excel for planning purposes.
“In our internal record-keeping, we use an Excel spreadsheet because it allows us to project and just troubleshoot and brainstorm how we are going to continue to meet our budget,” she said.
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