First addressed by Ward 3 Alderman Jeff Bouse and Mayor Pitts Lesesne on Aug. 18, Jennifer Basham, staff accountant and bookkeeper, updated the Cuba Board of Aldermen on Oct. 20 about issues with the city’s financial software and recommended alternatives.

Basham said that over the past couple of years, she has been investigating issues with gWorks, the city’s accounting program, working with the municipal auditor and through the audits.

“Fast forward to the last fiscal year, I began noticing that our accounts payable and cash were not balancing in a substantial way,” Basham said.

She contacted the company to cancel the contract with gWorks and switch programs.

“We were in a hybrid state with our company. With council approval, we were given approval to move forward by adding the Front Desk model (with gWorks) and moving to another cloud-based program,” Basham said.

The company looked at Cuba’s system and did find some issues. It made some entries after city approval.

“This occurred right around the time we were faced with the huge electric bill,” Basham said. “Unfortunately, when we thought we had a certain amount of cash in the electric department, we were flying blind because the system we trust is not giving us the correct information.”

After she received almost no response from the gWorks team, Basham began examining the city cash for the last fiscal year and discovered a pattern.

“The pattern was, where all checks cleared were posted to the following accounts: cash, accounts payable and the expenditure accounts, as well as hitting the bank reconciliation module. When we use the electronic checks module section of the accounts payable module, various ACH (Automated Clearing House) checks would not post to the accounts payable and general ledger accounts correctly,” Basham said.

This made some of the accounts out of balance.

Support for gWorks recommended solving the issue by entering all the invoices as checks and not as ACH or electronic checks, which Basham doesn’t see as effective. They have also had a lot of issues communicating with gWorks, as it is taking weeks before they respond.

While dealing with these issues, they have looked at two other companies: BS&A Software and Tyler Technologies.

BS&A will provide the city with all its necessary services, cost $74,035 and will do in-house training. Tyler Technologies will also provide all the services the city needs and costs $76,667, but does not provide in-house training. Since in-house training is a priority, it is cheaper and they feel it is a better fit for Cuba. Basham recommended that the city use BS&A as its new accounting service.

Ward 3 Alderman Joyce Hartzell asked how the city was going to pay for this new program, and Basham said that it currently doesn’t have the funds to afford it.

With BS&A, there is a payment plan with $37,745 due upon signing the contract.

It is estimated that it would take about 10 months to switch everything over to BS&A. Meanwhile, the city would be paying fees to both BS&A and gWorks.

A motion to accept the recommendation to use BS&A as the city’s new accounting system failed by a 0-5 vote.

Sewer Supervisor AJ Harmon asked the aldermen to approve the purchase of a panel, two water pumps and four floats for the Medows No. 8 lift station.

He said the 35-year-old panel gave inconclusive readings. It has bad wiring and the pumps wouldn’t run water when they turned them on. Harmon added that the floats were cheap and wanted to purchase them as extra security in case something else breaks.

Basham said that the $13,600 for the items was in the budget.

A motion to purchase the items was approved with a 5-0 vote.

Basham said that to purchase the parts, they want to use the ordinance that allows the sewer department to utilize committed funds.

Committed funds are a portion of the fund balance. They have constraints or limitations on them, and are set aside by the board for a specific purpose.

“So we’re just asking that instead of using operating cash to purchase these parts, that we use this replacement fund to purchase the parts and pay for them out of this cash account,” Basham said.

There is currently $571,637.07 in the account.

A motion to use the committed funds in the treatment plant equipment replacement fund was approved by a 5-0 vote.

Verbal Blakey, of BHMG Engineers, Inc., first discussed changing Cuba’s electric rate structure on Sept. 1, and the aldermen approved it, but it needs a small amendment.

Aldermen approved adding a $20 flat service fee, but they didn’t remove the $8.18 30kWh flat service fee.

A motion to remove the fee was approved by a 5-0 vote.

There was a position open on the Cuba Tourism Committee and they have to have someone from the hotel industry. With a term ending on Oct. 20, 2029, Sonya Panchal, with the Cuba Super 8 Hotel, was recommended for the position.

A motion to accept the recommendation was approved with a 5-0 vote.

In other business, a motion to accept Bill No. 2249, which accepts and approves the electric easement recorded as instrument number 202603064 with the Crawford County Recorder of Deeds from grantor Silo Ridge Land Strategy LLC to the city of Cuba was approved by a 5-0 vote and became General Ordinance 1260.

Bill No. 2250 became Special Ordinance 983 when a motion to accept it was approved by a 5-0 vote. It is an ordinance that declares certain city owned real property to be surplus to the needs of the city, authorizing the sale and conveyance of sail real property, approving the terms of sale, authorizing the mayor to execute a purchase agreement and deed and other necessary documents and providing for an effective date (MB Supply Components, LLC).