Redevelopment authority meets with accountants
UNIONTOWN — At its regular monthly meeting Wednesday, the city redevelopment authority met with two representatives from McClure & Wolf to discuss the authority’s upcoming annual audit during an executive session that lasted approximately 65 minutes.
Uniontown Redevelopment Authority Executive Director Mark Rafail said the meeting with Clayton Gregg IV and Drew Dupont of McClure & Wolf was to discuss minor audit-related details, and there was no timetable yet for when McClure & Wolf’s next audit report for the authority would be released.
The authority accepted an audit report from McClure & Wolf in September 2015, when Gregg detailed the consequences of poor record-keeping and grant oversight by the authority in prior years. Gregg said then that interfund transactions within the authority resulted in the authority losing out on thousands of dollars in state funding due to what Gregg called a previous “lack of internal control over financial reporting.”
Rafail, who was formally approved as authority executive director in April 2014, said then that the authority had instituted a formal document retention policy to guard against future data entry errors, and Gregg added then that the organization was “en route to being a much better authority” regarding financial record-keeping than it was earlier in the decade.
The authority and the McClure & Wolf accountants did not discuss any authority business publicly at Wednesday’s meeting, which the accountants left 63 minutes into the executive session.
In other business, the board authorized Rafail to sign an agreement between the authority and the city in which the city will pay $75,000 to PNC Bank for the final payment on a city firetruck. When the state Department of Community and Economic Development releases 2015 CDBG funding, the authority will reimburse the city the $74,500 that was budgeted for the payment at the time of the application.
The board also authorized Rafail to make an offer to an unnamed applicant for a part-time administrative assistant position not to exceed 15 hours per week, “at will” and with no benefits.
The authority indicated that it will make the same offer to a second unnamed applicant if the first unnamed applicant does not accept the position, which has a start date of Jan. 9. Rafail said the authority also used its executive session to discuss candidates for a part-time administrative assistant position.
Later, the board confirmed authority Solicitor Sam Davis’ assessment that the board’s November vote to raise Rafail’s salary was based on merit and not simply to satisfy the U.S. Department of Labor’s raising the salary threshold indicating overtime eligibility to $47,476 per year.
The board voted last month to raise Rafail’s salary from $40,000 to $48,000 per a four-year contract starting Dec. 1.
Rafail noted Wednesday that late last month, the U.S. District Court for Eastern Texas put on hold the guidelines set by the department that would have boosted the salary threshold for overtime from $23,660 a year to $47,476 a year.
In other business, the authority authorized Rafail to sign a resolution of condemnation of 209 N. Gallatin Ave., and for the authority to take possession of that property to be demolished since its structure is unsafe for human habitation.