After months of debate, McComb City Administrator Quordiniah Lockley announced a consensus has been reached between him, chief financial officer Mary Adams, city department heads and other employees who use the city’s accounting software.
However, the decision adds ambiguity to Adams’ and Lockley’s job descriptions.
Mayor Zach Patterson requested at last week’s board meeting that Lockley and Adams see eye-to-eye on the issue, which has been a matter of contention.
The consensus was reached Friday, but came with a caveat. In a letter made available to the public at Monday’s work session, Adams said the change in software from Quick Books to Deltacom meant Lockley “must accept financial responsibility and be accountable for his decisions on software, software implementation and the financial records resulting from his accounting decisions and directions.”
But Lockley said he wanted to make it clear that reverting to Deltacom is based on a decision made by numerous city employees, not just him.
“It appears (Adams) is making it sound like this is the way ‘Mr. Lockley’ wants it,” he said. “No, there was a meeting, and I allowed the departments heads and public employees to talk at that meeting. And it was the consensus of that group, not Mr. Lockley, that we should move in that direction.”
The consensus reached in Friday’s meeting was that a return to Deltacom would place control of department budgets back in the hands of department heads, as they are more familiar and comfortable with Deltacom.
Adams said if department heads handle coding in the general ledger for their own budgets, she cannot not be held responsible for financial records.
“I don’t think I can be (held responsible) with the way Mr. Lockley wants to implement this,” she said.
“The Delta software is much harder for me to do than what I’ve been using. But, if everybody else wants to go with it, I’m in agreement with that,” she said.
Lockley said the department heads claim they can’t take responsibility if Adams handles the coding.
“Department heads say, ‘If you do all the coding, then we can’t be responsible for our budgets,’ ” Lockley said. “Heads are responsible for their budgets. How can they be held responsible if (Adams) does the coding?”
The board will vote on the issue at next Tuesday’s board meeting. If the swap is made, Adams said, from her perspective, the overall city budget would become Lockley’s responsibility.
“I don’t see how I could be (responsible),” she said. “If they want to change their budget, they have the right to do that. Just go before the board and say, ‘I need to move some funds around,’ or request more money.”
She also said her role would be diminished to an extent. Adams said she will probably continue to give the board monthly reports and reconcile cash if the swap is made.
