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City prepares for new state-mandated training

The rules are not yet finalized, so the Sundance City Council is not yet sure who will need to take the new state-mandated training for officers and council members who are involved in handling finances – or what exactly the certification process will involve.

“From how I understand it, if you are a council member or appointed and you deal with finances of any sort, you have to go through a training to make sure that your meetings are essentially reported correctly, that you understand how the finances of these organizations work,” said Council Member Joe Wilson.

Wilson explained that it appears the training is attempting to catch two errors: leaving an entity open to fraud and making unsound financial decisions.

“They’re trying to make sure that we don’t have people coming in and defrauding…and making sure that you don’t have a $100,000 water well and nine people on it and then when you need to pay to repair that, you go in with your hat in your hands and say you had no idea that you were going to have to pay for this,” he said.

While not against the idea of the training, the council identified several concerns while discussing its implications.

“The best of intentions, I just don’t think it was rolled out real well,” said Wilson.

For the mayor, the biggest issue is the potential impact of another training requirement on volunteerism.

“We’re just going to start losing volunteers faster than we used to,” he said.

Brooks explained his worry that having to undertake mandatory training in a person’s free time will be off-putting.

“You know, they do this and then they say, nobody wants to be an ambulance driver any more, nobody wants to be a part of the fire department. This is why, folks: because you steal their weekends,” he said.

“…The problem is, you’re taking this young guy who wants to be an activist in the community and you’re making him choose whether he goes to see his daughter play volleyball or goes to a WAM training. That’s where you lose people’s interest in and support for your community.”

Wilson was meanwhile concerned about the finer details of the training, none of which are yet known.

“It sounds like the state auditor is still trying to hammer out exactly how they’re going to do this,” he said.

While the Wyoming Association of Municipalities is organizing a training for the course, he said, not every council member or board appointee will have the time or ability to travel across the state to a convention. For this reason, Wilson said efforts are underway to figure out how to offer the training on a more regionalized basis.

The Wyoming Association of Municipal Clerks and Treasurers is also attempting to put together an online version to cut out the travel, said Curren. However, the cost and length of the training is still unknown.

“Hopefully, in June they’ll figure that out and get some rules for us,” she said.

The cost will also fall on the entity taking the training, Wilson added – and it won’t be possible to opt out.

“Although it is a state mandate, it is a nonfunded state mandate, so we’re going to have to figure out how to pay for this ourselves,” he said, later commenting, “From my understanding, if you’re not in compliance, the state will tell you that you can no longer be in that position.”

For some in the council chambers on Tuesday, an even bigger question loomed. Who exactly needs to take this training?

Jeremy Holt pointed out that the economic development committee also has a budget – does that mean its members need to take the training?

“Everyone on that is going to have to sit in that training,” said Wilson. “Everyone that has access [to the budget].”

Brooks noted that some departments are under the auspices of the city’s budget, which means they may not be required to participate.

“The daycare would be one, the low-income housing…the fire department. There are several others that have a mandate that…their books need to run through us,” he said.

“All we do is invoice the money in that they give us and we invoice the expenditures out, but there is a paper trail for the auditor. That’s why I feel very strongly about having an auditor.”

City Attorney Mark Hughes disagreed, however.

“I don’t think it’s as overarching as you’re suggesting. Only people that have access to money are required to take that training,” said Hughes.

An officer who doesn’t dispense money is unlikely to be required to take it, he said.

“We’re going to have to figure that out, but I don’t think the intent is to make somebody who doesn’t have any way of writing a check go to that thing,” he said.

“…Otherwise it’s simply not going to be workable.”

Plenty of time remains for the city to figure out the finer details. According to Curren, the intent of the new law is that all new officers must take the training within a year.

However, because the program is so new, she said, everyone will have until next August to complete it.

 
 
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