Monessen audit doesn’t suggest intentional mismanagement

By KRISTIE LINDEN

klinden@yourmvi.com

The 2019 audit of Monessen’s finances is complete and it doesn’t point to the type of widespread financial mismanagement that has been alleged by some council members.

Mayor Matt Shorraw said he feels better having the audit finished, but wishes the city had the funding to do a forensic audit because he still has concerns.

“I don’t know that that’s something that an audit would find,” Shorraw said. “I still think there was some of that going on, but I am glad that we seem to be stabilized.”

For much of the past year, Shorraw and Councilman Don Gregor have alleged that someone who was part of council or the administration — prior to Shorraw and Councilman Gil Coles returning to council after a nearly two-year hiatus — may have intentionally tried to bankrupt the city.

The auditors wrote that there were no matters that came to their attention that would require them to inform council about “methods used to account for significant unusual transactions and the effect of significant accounting policies in controversial or emerging areas for which there is a lack of authoritative guidance or consensus.”

The audit shows that in 2019, the city ended the year $179,880 in the black, as Councilman Tony Orzechowski pointed out at Monday’s council workshop meeting.

Orzechowski, who was finance chairman in 2019, was often the target of the financial mismanagement allegations.

Gregor pointed out that while that’s true, the city carried over $656,000 in unpaid bills from 2019 into 2020 and is still paying off that debt.

City Administrator John Harhai said $43,000 of that debt remains, but it will be paid off by September. He said the debt that’s left is from the police pension, and  all other bills for 2021 are current through July.

After the meeting, Shorraw pointed to those unpaid bills — sanitation, health insurance and police pension — as financial mismanagement.

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