Templeton Selectmen are always repeating we have a great financial Team in place.

Are the selectmen getting and hiring experienced staff? If not, are they providing current and necessary training so Town funds (your money) is well looked after and ensuring it is (money) working for you - invested and making money, ie: interest, results on investment!

The most current financial audit says no:

1. Maximizing Investment Returns 
Over the past ten years, the interest earned on bank deposits have not kept pace with inflation. Many bank depository accounts currently return less than 1%. However, there are a growing number of banks and financial institutions like the Massachusetts Municipal Depository Trust, or MMDT, that are financially stable and offer very liquid short-term investments with annual interest rates greater than 2%. In fiscal year 2018, the Town’s governmental funds reported interest income of about $30,000 despite total cash holdings of over $9 million. A review of the Town’s bank deposits at June 30, 2018 reveals that virtually all of its deposits are in accounts bearing interest at 0.0% to 0.25%. We recommend that the Town Treasurer evaluate the Town’s depository balances and accounts and evaluate the possible benefits of reallocating portions of the Town’s excess funds to stable financial institutions that offer very liquid safe short-term investments. In doing so, it can turn its cash into a revenue generating asset.

3. Closing Checklists 
Closing checklists are employed by accounting departments to better ensure that all routine and non-routine accounting transactions and reconciliations are performed and the final outputs (i.e., the Town’s balance sheet and Schedule A) are reviewed for accuracy and completeness. The use of closing checklists is commonplace in private industry but is seldom used in the public sector. The Town had great difficulty getting its free cash approved; in the end it was approved at the expected amount, but the Department of Revenue process was not used properly. We recommend that the Town Accountant, Treasurer/Collector develop a closing checklist to monitor and track the annual accounting close in order for the process to be more efficient in the future.

9. Treasurer/Collector Office (repeated from prior year)

In our letter to management dated March 23, 2017 we identified 17 critical areas in the Treasurer/Collectors Office that needed to be addressed. Many of those have been addressed through fiscal year 2018, however some remain and should be addressed in the current fiscal year. Those are highlighted as follows:
• While efforts are made to collect cash from department heads weekly, there is no formal policy regarding cash held by departments outside the Treasurer’s Office. The Treasurer was unaware that all Town cash is under the Treasurer’s control, and the Treasurer has the duty to force effective internal control policies on all departments who handle cash.
• Presently, the Collector does not use a lock box to collect taxes. A lock box is essentially a third-party collector of taxes. Taxpayers mail their payments to a Post Office box, and the third-party collector deposits the funds for the Town and posts activity for all those who have paid. Daily, an electronic file is then sent to the Town where payments are uploaded automatically to the Town’s system.
• Cash forecasts are currently not prepared as part of a monthly routine. This is a critical process for Towns that are cash stressed; we suggest such a process is implemented immediately.
• In 2011 the Department of Revenue began to require towns to process mark to market adjustments prior to submitting their balance sheets for free cash. This is very similar to the accounting requirements under GASB 31. The Town currently nor ever has processed mark to market adjustments for unrealized gains and losses. While this does not impact free cash and only impacts the Trust Funds, we suggest the Town adopt a process to complete these transactions at year-end.