September 28, 2011 On September 14 at the regular Ramapo Town Board meeting, Supervisor St. Lawrence requested authorization to make the following budget loans: $2,000,000 from the Workers’ Compensation Fund to the General Fund, $100,000 from Ambulance District to the Highway DB account, and $400,000 from the Lighting District to A Fund. On Friday, Sept. 23, when he was asked on WRCR why this massive withdrawal from Workers’ Compensation Fund, he offered a confused narrative about a worker with a serious medical condition to account for $1million of the transfer. He didn’t have much to say about the other $1million. He did, however, insist, once again that there are no cash-flow problems at the Town.

There are a few follow-up questions that might occur to residents witnessing for the first time this shuffling of enormous amounts of cash between offices. These were not asked by WRCR, nor, it seems by the Board that voted to approve the slushing of these funds from budget line to budget line.

Why is the General Fund out of funds? And why does it need to borrow a sum as large as $2million for its general operations? And why was the Workers’ Compensation Fund selected as the one to be drained?

This Board and Supervisor have taken out a succession of very large loans recently. Where did that money go? There were bonds for $85 million in new debt in the last 15 months, and now the General Fund is tapped out and has to borrow two million from an insurance fund? And the Highway Department is also showing up underfunded, requesting a loan of $100,000 from the Ambulance District?

The recent audit by the New York State Comptroller did point out that there were serious examples of unrealistic budgetary projections about anticipated income. These apparently have created pockets of debt all over the books at Ramapo. Have these false predictions by the CFO (St. Lawrence) created a dry rot throughout the financial system that will ultimately collapse under the weight of his enormous ballpark debt? Keep in mind that the accounts payable for the ballpark are not closed with major roadwork still to be done, perpetual maintenance costs, and, we have been told, even payments that have not yet been made to contractors.

If the money isn’t there now, how will the General Fund repay this loan before December 31st? The two million is a loan, and it has to be repaid with interest in December of this year. Will another bond be necessary to cover it?