ORR- The Orr City Council put in some extra hours this past week, holding a special meeting to review the city’s latest audit report in addition to Monday’s regular meeting.
Monday
The first and perhaps best item of Monday’s agenda was a resolution accepting almost $12,500 in donations for the fire and ambulance departments and July 3rd Fun Day. Appropriately, the lion’s share of the total was donated by the Orr Lions Community Foundation, $8,366.99 for the ambulance department and $3,009.43 for the fire department. Additional donations for the fire department for picnic tables were made by Park State Bank, Scott Wright, John and Karen Barto, and Gregory and Lorrie Anderson, and Bollig Engineering gave $300 for the July 3rd celebration.
Council member Hannah Manick noted that the picnic tables were a fine addition to the July 3rd event.
“Thank you to everyone who donated for the picnic tables,” she said. “There were a lot of comments about having them. I think we had about 15 tables in total and it was nice to see everybody sitting and relaxing.”
Council members reviewed yet another blight complaint letter about the property at 4720 Pine Drive, still listed in county records as being owned by Jeremy Morris, who is currently incarcerated at the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Rochester medical center. A longstanding irritant to neighbors, the complainant (who was not identified in the meeting) took the city to task for a lack of follow-up on previous complaints.
“It is obvious to everyone, except you apparently, that the owner has no intention of repairing or maintaining it,” the letter stated. “I am demanding that this situation come to a conclusion and the property owner be forced to do what all of us around it would do … maintain the property or pay to have it done through the blight ordinance.”
After council member Bruce Black said that he would work with maintenance supervisor Paul Koch on the issue, the council took no formal action on the complaint.
In other business, the council:
• Approved a resolution to apply to the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation department for funds for crack seal and lighting projects at the airport.
• Approved a building permit for Greg and Ellen Little for an addition to a previously approved deck at 10627 King Rd.
• Tabled a request from the Orr Lions Club for a donation for painting the Billy the Bluegill sign in order to determine the appropriate budget line item and amount for the request.
• Approved the hiring of Michelle Whitcomb as part-time office assistant/visitor information specialist at the rate of $14 an hour. Whitcomb started in the position on July 2 and is approved to work through Aug. 30.
• Appointed Marilyn Grilley as an election judge.
• Approved a bid from Braun Northwest for a new ambulance in the amount of $295,000. The replacement for the department’s second unit is estimated to take 550 days for delivery, due to extensive order backlogs.
Audit meeting
Auditor Bonnie Sterle met with council members Robert Antikainen, Melissa Wright, and John Jirik on Tuesday, July 2 to discuss the findings of the 2023 audit report.
The city got good marks overall, receiving a clean, unmodified audit.
Sterle noted a longstanding deficiency common to smaller towns and organizations with limited staff, that of a lack of segregation of duties in dealing with financial receipts. Auditors typically recommend having one person receive payments, another record them, and a third who makes deposits. Sterle recommended that the council request certain reports of activity to review on a regular basis to provide the appropriate oversight.
Sterle also noted that there were numerous journal entry, deposit, and bank reconciliation adjustments that were necessary. Sterle explained the errors as a reasonable side effect of staff turnover in the city office in 2023 and the complexity of the coding system used to assign each transaction to a budget line item.
Despite the tight budget pressures the city has, Sterle reported that the city is in good shape as far as covering budgeted expenses, with about five months of operating cash on hand. She encouraged the council to make more adjustments to the budget in the future to reflect necessary transfers between funds and line items.