Grilling of Coatesville Finance Director and the GL Specialist who suddenly skipped off to India.

A long time city employee, a GL Specialist (General Ledger Specialist) with access to cash and the ability to delete finance files abruptly leaves for India when there is at least $168,000 unaccounted for. Not even a whimper about it from City Hall.  

Some Coatesville residents paid their trash bills and other bills in cash and one of the people who took that cash in payment was, you guessed it, the GL Specialist Dharmesh “Raj” Kalaria.

There is nothing from 2 members of the Coatesville City Council but a grilling of the finance director. That same finance director who discovered the missing $168,000 and that same finance director who discovered the delinquent trash bills of 3 city council members and that the city overpaid sick pay and vacation pay to another city council member when he had a part time job with the city.

We all know that whistle blowers usually are fired. Ms. Bjorhus is probably checking her LinkedIn right now.  Guess you have to be very careful just who you blow the whistle on in Coatesville.

This is sections of the Finance Report of the City of Coatesville Finance Director Stacy Bjorhus at the Coatesville City Council meeting on Monday September 26, 2011.

Make sure you listen to the recording below. The tone of the voices is important.

At 6:24 on the recording:

“This month it has been extremely rushed between everything we’ve been trying to do; learn a new task, GL. Because as you’re aware or may not be aware, Mr. Kalaria walked in 10:30 Monday morning on August 22^nd and left.

We didn’t have any cross training. There was no information about where the files were…”

At 7:19:

“He would also upload from the raw data that came in from the accounts payable and the cash receipts…”

At 7:57:

He left with inventory at his desk. We had no idea where his files were. Where he downloaded information from; we didn’t have the benefit of any of that information.

Mr. Brazzle,

“As a director do you feel that it’s important that you knew how to do the GL?”

Ms. Bjorhus,

“That I knew how to do the GL?”

Mr. Brazzle,

“Yes…

Ms. Bjorhus,

“Not necessarily….Anyplace I’ve ever worked the finance director had assumed that the GL maintenance was done by the GL maintenance. It’s basically a clerk’s function. I would review and give Mr. Kalaria journal entries based on things that I thought need to be corrected. But actually getting in knowing which modules to pull, knowing when a payroll came in how the upload was done; no. And Mr. Kalaria kept that information to himself. He did not look for assistance. He did not look for information…

9:28-

You want someone in the department who is overseeing. Not to be able to get in and manipulate the data. You want one person to have that access. One person is responsible for controlling the GL.  If you have more than one person controlling the GL then you can have chaos. It’s basically part of the separation of duties…

10:36-

When Mr. Reed was here, I had requested for Mr. Kalaria have less influence on the GL but Mr. Reed had defended Mr. Kalaria’s position as being the sole determinate of the GL. And he did have rights in the system that I did not think he should have but management had deemed that they were warranted. All I could do is look at the data confirm the entries going in; look at the audit trails monitor.

Mr. Simpson,

“You know Mr. Reed is gone.”

Mr. Brazzle,

“What about Mr. Rawlings, did you bring it up to him?”

Ms. Bjorhus,

“Yes”

Mr. Brazzle,

“And what did he say?”

Ms. Bjorhus,

“He felt that….”

Mr. Rawlings, “The Finance Department is in a transition. We have the auditor coming in one day a week to try and help Stacy out to make sure that things are being properly posted. I’ve authorized additional part time to help do the clerk work within the Finance Department. And of course I’ve talked to council about getting an assistant to the Director position going to split some of the duties up…

Mr. Brazzle,

“I got all that but my question was not just answered. When she brought this to your attention what did you say?”

Mr. Rawlings.

“Which part?”

Ms. Bjorhus,

“About Mr. Kalaria’s involvement with the, in deleting files, having the ability to delete the files.”

Mr. Rawlings,

“Was that where we got into the system of administrative… there was a lot of names, on the, what do you call it, the software?”

Ms. Bjorhus,

“But also in terms of …”

 Mr. Rawlings,

“You mean what he could take off it?”

Ms. Bjorhus,

Right; there was, Mr. Kalaria was the GL maintenance and that was his function. That was his job function. We had recently redvised his job function.”

Mr. Simpson,

“Did you specifically go to Mr. Rawlings and say he’s in charge of GL maintenance and we need to add more people to help with this?”

Ms. Bjorhus,

“O know, O know, I only, I advised Mr. (Rawlings) about Mr. Kalaria’s permission to assist in deletion rights. But even Mike Lewis who comes in, our lead auditor does not; you have one person to do the GL. And look, we’re scheduling web training which is coming up. I had hopes to have that position filled and held off on the training but in this point in time we’ll have the training, Carol and I will go and sit in on it….

14:13:

Ms. Jorgensen,

“We need much more sophisticated accounting systems and we’re working with 4Gov. And what we need is some stability in our accounting system. That’s what our issues have been for the last, how many years? The last 4 years.”

Mr. Simpson,

“And it seems like we had a system in place.”

Ms. Jorgenson,

“OK, and it’s not there anymore.”

19:33:

Ms. Bjorhus,

“We did not have good closure numbers from 2008, couldn’t get them. So we move into 2009 and you still have bad numbers and then you go through 2009. But remember in March 2009 is actually when the city moved from Cassel to 4 Gov. So for the first three months of the year they were taking receipts in Cassel and expenditures out of 4 Gov. It wasn’t until 2010 that they reconciled the first three months of 09… OK so now we’re in 010 and our ending numbers are better; all they are, are better.

Mr. Simpson,

“Well we already had a financial accounting of 010, correct?

Ms. Bjorhus,

“A statement, yes.”

Mr. Simpson,

“But there won’t be an audit because there’s not enough, there’s insufficient data to do an actual audit correct?”

Ms. Bjorhus,

“Because the auditors could not come to good numbers again.”

Mr. Simpson,

“So I’m a little bit confused when you say now is not the time.”

Ms. Bjorhus,

“We’re still knocking down numbers you’re right. Are we back in 08? No we’re not back in 08. We’re very, very far in 2011.

Mr. Brazzle,

“So we’re guaranteed to get an audit in 2011?

Ms. Bjorhus,

“Yes, not a statement, an audit.”

See:

Some city officials owe trash bills

Published: Thursday, June 09, 2011

By ERIC S. SMITH
Staff Writer

COATESVILLE — Three City Council members, two Redevelopment Authority members and one city employee have outstanding trash bills owed to the city, according to city documents.

See:

Coatesville council pursues new look at billing

Published: Tuesday, September 27, 2011

By ERIC S. SMITH
Staff Writer

See:

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2011

Can the FBI, in India, interview people that worked in the USA?

This is also interesting for historical background:

FRIDAY, JANUARY 14, 2011

Reposting a recording of Keith Gargus speaking about Coatesville’s financial software