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Recreation Commission Meeting October 4, 2004 bookkeeper will open it the bag, count the money, look on the tape and try to decipher from where all the income is coming. There are three different people working this project. It’s not efficient and it’s not accurate. It takes forever to get these numbers. It has to be put on a spreadsheet with three other reports. The Rec is trying to clean up this system. A month ago, Mr. Jesse asked the Commissioner for a simple income report. The report the Commissioner got from the bookkeeper is supposed to track visits per day. The form Mr. DiSalvo received showed only 327 for one month. That’s almost a daily number. There’s something wrong with this system. The tape that was referred to shows that if you come in for public skate, there’s a special code on the register that shows either resident or non-resident skate. Mr. DiSalvo commented that he did not know how that got messed up. The tapes that the Rec Department has are accurate coming into the office. The issue is in the report. Mr. Baxter asked if the Rec Department has the responsibility for the entire situation, or does the Finance Department? Mr. DiSalvo said that that was a good question; the bookkeeper needs to report the matter to Finance because that is part of the issue. Mr. Baxter said that when he talked to Carrie (Copfer), she said that she has an assistant now, an extra pair of hands trained in accounting. Mr. DiSalvo said that it wasn’t an extra pair of hands, but a replacement he knew was swamped catching up. The Commissioner also said that he can’t imagine that this is happening only in the Recreation Department. Mr. Jesse confirmed that observation. Mr. Baxter noted that the Rec Department was the Department with cash revenues coming in. Mr. Lasko said that, where Rec Center operations are concerned, this has been addressed in other facilities as well, i.e., Westlake, Middleburg Heights, etc. Mr. DiSalvo replied that those cities have software packages to handle their finances. Mr. Lasko asked why North Olmsted Rec did not. Mr. DiSalvo said that priority is to get the Finance Department its hardware and software packages set, and then it will spread to other departments. Ms. Drenski said that the Rec could not use current software because the hardware is obsolete. Mr. Lasko said that he’s not a practicing CPA like Mr. Baxter, but he remembers enough to understand the cost of replacing hardware and software could be a pittance compared to what could be going out the window. Mr. Baxter said that, more importantly, it’s hard to make decisions about what you’re doing. Mr. DiSalvo replied that yes, it’s hard to get instant increment information. Delayed is almost impossible; really late is reality. It’s hard to manage and the Commissioner would like to inform the Commission well on the financial report, but to be honest, he did not trust the numbers. Mr. Jesse said that this problem has been here for a long time, and when there are surpluses in plans, they don’t surface. Walking in with a $1.8 million dollar deficit and immediately going to $5 million, every single process and account is questioned, and that’s when serious issues are found. The point of sale system bought for Springvale is not compatible with the Rec. There are some fundamental controls that still have not been implemented and need to be put in place. Mr. Baxter asked a related question about employees and their families doing away with “free”, and the Commission thought that by doing that it would see an uptake in revenue. Has that been improved upon? Mr. DiSalvo said that those controls are in place. The Commissioner’s main concern is with programming, i.e., Chris Wetmore has cancelled two or three programs already. Mr. DiSalvo does not know if it’s in the shift in the ages of the kids. Sandra Andrews also had a poor year in aquatics, mainly due to the weather, but lessons and leagues are doing O.K. The day to day visiting business has been very Page 4