Paul Joiner has been on the Lincoln City Council since 2008. He owns this.
The California State Auditor’s office slammed the city of Lincoln for years of financial mismanagement of public funds, lax accountability and inadequate oversight from officials that “threaten the city’s stability,” in an audit report released Thursday.
Lincoln overcharged developers and residents millions of dollars, made “questionable” loan transfers, and shuffled money from restricted funds to offset deficit-ridden accounts to falsely present the funds as solvent, according to the state auditor’s report which reviewed city practices between 2013 and 2018. These actions “did not always follow state law,” Chief Deputy State Auditor John Billington wrote in a letter to legislators.
For many in Lincoln, the state audit validates a long-held belief that city officials repeatedly failed to heed concerns raised by residents, contributing to bad accounting practices and government oversight, said Tony Manning, a co-founder of a neighborhood watchdog group called Lincolnites for Integrity and Fiscal Transparency, or LIFT.
The Sacramento Bee (in this case legitimately) torched the City Of Lincoln for:
Ripping off its’ residents
Jerking off the books, perhaps laundering money to trick auditors
Breaking State Law
It appears that the financial maladies from the City of Lincoln circa 2008 continued to exist and were covered up with Slight of Hand, under the Watch of Paul Joiner.
And to think, my limited experience with Lincoln was the shuttered fire station with the $1.4 Million Ladder Truck Sitting in it.
The Lincoln City Council acknowledged “mistakes were made” that have eroded the public’s trust, in a letter signed by all members published Thursday on the city’s website.
Perhaps Paul’s opponents should send a copy of the letter out and ask if they can expect another one when he brings the same practices to the County of Placer? (Do note that the link to the letter in the original Bee article is broken)
The audit found Lincoln made resident ratepayers cover $1.6 million in the city’s municipal utilities costs from January 2014 through February 2018, violating a state constitution provision. Voters in 1996 approved Proposition 218, which allows local government to charge ratepayers only for the cost of servicing the ratepayer’s property.
Whoops. Perhaps this is why public employee unions are drooling over having Joiner on the County Board of Supervisors? Will he hide a bunch of new toys for the unions in the County Books?
Lincoln also overcharged developers and builders for the cost of water infrastructure, with the city collecting nearly $41 million in excess for its water connections fund as of June 2017, according to the report.
The city would then loan money from the water connections fund, in addition to other funds, to separate accounts that “clearly did not have the capacity to repay those loans,” according to the report, breaking the city’s interfund loan policy. The city has five outstanding interfund loans it is obligated to pay back, totaling $9.6 million, according to Hanson.
The city would also temporarily transfer money from the water connections fund each year to several other funds with deficits, such as the Fire Department, Parks Department and the airport, from 2013 to 2017, misrepresenting its financial position in its annual financial statements, the audit reported.
Between fiscal 2013-14 and 2016-17, transfers from the water connection fund ranged from more than $7 million in 2016-17, to nearly $19 million the previous year.
The mismanagement stems from years of city officials failing to follow their own policies, the report states. Several past financial investigations by the city’s external financial auditor reported “recurring deficiencies, including the city’s inability to accurately prepare its financial statements at the end of each fiscal year,” but little changed, the report said.
Here is the clincher:
Lincoln’s last permanent city manager, Matt Brower, resigned in June 2018. Lincoln’s current mayor, Paul Joiner, has served on the City Council since 2008.
So – the City of Lincoln was ripping off the residents and developers. Then, they used the money to backfill the budgets of the Fire Department and the Police Department. If anyone reading this blog thinks that the current union endorsers of Paul Joiner are not aware of this practice he sanctioned they are out of their minds.
Paul Joiner has a lot to answer for.
P.S. The City of Lincoln never had to pay the money back. What’s next for Placer County???