I made the following suggestion to Council at the beginning of the August Council meeting.

I have a recommendation to increase transparency for two items regularly in the Council agenda. But first I would like to note that on a number of occasions, over the years, that Councilwoman Gorney has advocated for transparency in Borough government. I want to commend her for that support.

I would like to suggest that Borough Council provide a brief explanation when there are deviations in the month reporting of either Borough expenses or the Borough financial report.

In the beginning of each year the Borough Manager should determine the median for the prior year’s monthly expenses. Then when reporting the Borough monthly expenses, should that month’s expense amount deviate from the median by plus or minus 20% a brief explanation as to why that is the case should be provided and documented in the minutes.

There are two things I would like to see done to improve transparency of the Financial Report. First the dollar amount, for the financial report, communicated in the Council meeting should be consistently reported in the Council minutes. So far this year, the only financial report amount documented in the minutes is for the month of March. Did anyone notice that this was the case? Second, should the financial report amount for a given month drop by more than 1% (~$150K) a brief explanation as to the cause should be provided and documented in the minutes.