Shorraw: Someone may have tried to bankrupt city

By KRISTIE LINDEN

klinden@yourmvi.com

Monessen Mayor Matt Shorraw claims individuals may have intentionally tried to bankrupt the city “perhaps for their own interest.”

After reading from an outline of the city’s financial picture in a graph that compared the totals in various accounts in September 2019 and September 2020 at Tuesday night’s meeting, Shorraw said, “I hope I’m wrong when I say this, but looking at the figures it seems there were individuals who were intentionally trying to bankrupt the city perhaps for their own interests.”

Shorraw never identified who he believes could be responsible for these actions, but he made a recommendation for council to hire a forensic auditor to find out what happened with the city’s finances.

Shorraw said figures show more than 60% financial growth from 2019 to 2020, but resident Ron Mozer said before the meeting began that the graph includes the city’s debt service — or money it owes — as one of the funds. 

Mozer said the graph adds assets and liabilities together, showing the final figure as a total amount of money in hand. City Administrator John Harhai said that was wrong and the debt service amount in the graph represents an amount of money available. 

The chart shows the city had about $362,000 last year at this time in the general fund and about $798,000 this year. It also showed that it owed about $11,000 left on its annual debt service in 2019 and there’s about $427,000 left to be paid this year.  

The other funds, for line usage, liquid fuels and parks, showed lower amounts this year compared to last year. Later in the meeting, Harhai said that was by design for cash flow purposes.

“Where we’re down low in those charts, it’s designed to be that way. It gives you flexibility and gives you options on what you can do,” Harhai said. 

Shorraw said he looked into Act 47, and though the city isn’t in the clear yet and there is a lot of progress that still has to be made, Monessen is not eligible for Act 47 or bankruptcy at this time. The mayor further said the city isn’t exploring either option at this time and won’t in the near future.

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