We return to talking about alleged problems of the Administration from an accounting perspective, directly or through its council offshoots, through specific questions addressed to the Board of Auditors or even an infinite series of complaints addressed to the Prefecture and the Prosecutor’s Office of the Court of Auditors.
Evidently this is the only basis that can be used by those who, in the absence of proposals, seek in current administrative management the tricks practiced in their experience of governing public affairs. From this perspective, sometimes there is a cry about the “imbalance” of the accounts, sometimes about the incorrectness of the financial statement data in light of the findings of the board of auditors.
If we didn’t have solid content with which to dismantle these wicked theories, it would have been enough to underline how those who are running today against the current administration have already been condemned (not reported) by the Court of Auditors despite having governed the Municipality for only a few months. We instead prefer to respond, as always, with facts and data.
The subject of discussion is a management act, which the Board of Auditors itself indicated as requiring review, despite having underlined, directly in the council meeting, that there was also consensus jurisprudence on the attribution of electricity bills.
In practice the problem is that today, unlike in the past, the Municipality pays the bills and has intended to commit a sum in the current budget to also pay for last year’s unpredictable increases: a problem that all Municipalities have faced. You understood correctly: those who paid practically nothing, from waste to water, dispute that we pay.
In the report no. 9, which in an unusual electoral dynamic was brought to the attention of politicians even before it was correctly registered by the Municipality, the college believes that the payment of invoices should be covered in the budget of the year to which the consumption refers. In reality, as the financial manager of the Municipality had the opportunity to underline and confirmed by the auditors at the council meeting, jurisprudence indicates that “prior liabilities” which cannot be foreseen in their amount at the time of the commitment are attributable in the financial year in which the their liquidation, even if subsequent (Lombardy Region Control Section, 82/2015/PAR or also Regional Control Section for Sardinia 33/2021/PAR).
In any case, as already announced at the meeting with the auditors and as will also be underlined in the other institutions, institutions “inconvenienced” by those who – evidently – hope to put the Administration in difficulty with political pressure, despite not sharing this orientation, ‘The body is already preparing the rectification of this charge having found coverage in the residues.
Why did we make this choice? Probably the entire group of detractors does not even understand what we are talking about, but simply in this way, thanks to the foresight of the current administration under the accounting and financial plan, further resources are freed up for the relevant year.
So, far from financial chasms: unfortunately we have inherited those and are managing them. We will soon make known, in great detail, all the real “chasms” that this Administration, governing the merger processes, has had to face, borrowing them from the extinct municipalities, tying up, through laborious recovery plans, the institution’s coffers and, consequently and necessarily, determining physiological delays in current spending.
Also because, to avoid unpleasant surprises in the financial situation of the newborn city, the Financial Sector was called upon to manage the parameters of structural deficit with prudence and foresight: avoiding the use of cash advances, for example, where the systematic and often not returned to the Treasurer has historically represented the only method practiced to survive in the accounting management of extinct municipalities.
In practice, after years of “superficial” use of the cash advance, for 4 consecutive years this administration was able not to resort to it, and this in itself testifies to the type of management the municipal body had.
We are happy that the political oppositions are focusing on these aspects even with spasmodic and almost obsessive pressure because on the one hand it allows us to explain even better what kind of attention the current administration has had in managing the institution’s resources, but on the something else also confirms an embarrassing fact that we already knew: there is no content, other than self-harm given the previous accounting adventures.
In conclusion, prudence in financial management: this was the method adopted to the end by the municipal administration. But soon the analysis of the fusion processes will make plastic these and other situations which, with pride, can be defined as “achieved objectives” of a new way of understanding the management of public affairs, the one most suited to a city that is born already large and worthy of his dignity.
