SALEM — The finance committee forwarded the revised city tax budget to city council for approval in its meeting Tuesday.
Councilman and Committee Chairman Andrew Null, and councilman Jake Gano both said that the updated tax budget was significantly improved from the version which was rejected in the committee’s previous meeting on July 9, with only a few minor mathematical errors which Gano said appeared to instances of a formula not carrying through properly. Null said that he felt the lingering errors could be forwarded to City Auditor Sal Salvino for correction after which he felt the tax budget could be submitted to the county for approval. Salvino said that when drafting the first version of the budget which was approved in June, he had used the “detailed trial balance” feature of Software Solutions; however, when he compiled the larger version detailing every fund balance which was discussed in July he used the “annual financial report” feature, which unbeknownst to him was flawed.
“The numbers from the detailed trial balance were not jiving with the numbers from the annual financial reported so I put a ticket into SSI, and they declared that this has been a problematic area in E-Gov and it’s not always accurate. So, they recommended I not use the annual financial report in the future,” said Salvino. “Basically, I saw discrepancies between the annual financial statement and detailed trial balance and started seeing more examples throughout the tax budget, so I had to scrap the annual financial report altogether and use the detailed trial balance.”
Mayor Cyndi Baronzzi Dickey said that she could confirm that she had also read the email stating the feature was flawed and not recommended for future use.
The committee ultimately voted unanimously to forward the revised tax budget to the city council for approval prior to submission to the county.
Salvino also commented on the use of $63,090 of ARP funds as part of a purchase order to cover part of the $450,000 purchase of the property located between Lincoln Plaza and the Salem Memorial Building where the former Red Barn restaurant stands which was discussed at length in the committee’s July 1 meeting. An error which lead to a $25,000 contract payment to the city’s third-party commercial building department Elevate Building Solutions which had been designated to be paid from those ARP funds was made from the general fund instead.
Salvino reiterated comments made in that meeting that he could not have realistically known the payment needed to be made from the ARP Fund at that time, arguing that it was not indicated within the city’s appropriation list and was not communicated to him after taking office.
“There is a document located in the safe, and it’s called an appropriations document. This document in the safe was passed on [Dec. 5, 2023], it’s pretty much next to impossible, and I’ll stand by my statement, that its next to impossible without prior communication from my predecessor to earmark these funds in 2025. Even if the document was located prior to me taking over, it doesn’t contain any description of what to do with these ARP funds,” said Salvino.
Salvino also directly addressed Gano, with whom Salvino said he’d “had some back and forth,” saying that Gano had not “magically become the president of [his] company” and instead learned the skills required over time and that he did not have the same opportunity when he became City Auditor.
“On Day One, facing a turnkey transition, I faced challenges, obstacles, and learning curves that I had to figure out on my own. Growth and development takes time. In this position and every other position, I’ve held my number one goal is to be real with people, be truthful and transparent. If I don’t know the answer to something , I’m going to tell you I don’t know,” said Salvino.
He also said that he had an open-door policy and invited Gano to visit his office to “understand the challenges the office has faced since the former deputy auditor left in October 2023, and [his] predecessor at year end in 2023.” Salvino also recommended “taking a leadership class” to “further build on leadership and develop people handling skills.”
“In closing, remember your employees are your number one asset, treating them with respect, understanding, dignity, and empathy should be your number one priority. Every person you interact with could be facing a challenge beyond your comprehension,” said Salvino.
Responding to Salvino’s comments after the meeting Gano said that he felt the way Salvino handled the situation “was disheartening and highly unprofessional,” and that “overall, it’s just kind of sad.” Gano also said that whether Salvino’s comments regarding the treatment of employees were addressed to the committee or himself, noting “a lot of it” seemed to be, that Salvino was not his employee and that they were “two very different departments.”
“I wish he would come as prepared with his numbers as he did with that statement. It’s a shame really, because he felt it necessary to attack my personal life and my business career, whereas as a member of the finance committee it is my job to scrutinize his work and his numbers and apparently, he was unable to separate the two,” said Gano. “There’s been a long history of flaws since he’s taken office and we’re not seeing a lot of improvement. The fact that he continues to say it’s not his fault, he didn’t know, it was his predecessor isgetting kind of old.”
Gano said that those errors had also manifested in previous city issues, all of which had come to a head in the committee meeting this month.
This dates back to issues I’ve had with him on the Lincoln [Plaza] project where he couldn’t produce documents or information I requested, or when we were looking to implementing a new payroll software and the questions I was asking him there were getting wildly inaccurate answers from him, everything up to this point all just kind of came to a boiling point,” Said Gano. “At what point in time do we say enough is enough? Not we need more empathy, we need more compassion, sure, I’m a firm believer in that, but that’s not our role here, that’s not our job.”
