Hanky Panky with LMUD Financials

You can abandon an account, you can create a new account , but to "change" a name........causes huge problems with auditing.

People are in Federal Prison for doing just that.

LMUD's Black Magic Trick is BACK

It is called the LMUD Rope-A-Dope

The LMUD Controller has many years of experience in fooling the public.

Bill Stewart managed to manipulate almost a million dollars in LMUD's Employee health care account down to a few thousand dollars overnight.  

Bill Stewart was allowed to do the same with the Public Benefit Fund. One day there was three quarters of a million dollars in the fund and then practically overnight there was only a few thousand dollars in the account. Stewart refused to account for where the money went and refused public disclosure of all of the applications for this Public Fund.

Now he has the protection of his wife's employer,   Eugene Chittock (LMUD's attorney)

Now, LMUD's Controller is up to his old tricks.

With a waive of his wand       (over the naive Bowden, Dow and Vial) Bill Stewart will magically and possibly illegally change the account.....name of the  "RATE STABILIZATION FUND" to "BOARD RESTRICTED FUNDS". 

keep up now, we don't want to lose you,

Now, watch the bouncing balls, Wizard Stewart NOW wants to move $1,500,000 from the RESTRICTED FUNDS TO "UNRESTRICTED FUNDS" (General Fund)

. Keep in mind that the Rate Stabilization Fund, by Resolution,  must remain at $3,000,000 and

cannot be used unless there is a financial crisis.

Next, the $4,500,000 that LMUD claims is in the Rate Stabilization fund is made up of a Letter of Credit for $1,500,000 (?backed by a CD?). (WAPA required this Letter of Credit because of LMUD's financial instability).

If LMUD moves $1,500,000 into the General Funds (Unrestricted Account) TECHNICALLY, that leaves only $1,500,000 of real cash in the Rate Stabilization Fund/Restricted Funds. (CAUTION: you may experience a slight  blurriness at this point)

RESULT OF THIS UNETHICAL POSSIBLY ILLEGAL MOVE:

The Rate Stabilization money will "Poof".....disappear

The LMUD Board made the LMUD ratepayers suffer for five years of rate increases in order to "build up the Rate Stabilization Fund to avoid any crisis" (CLAIMED LMUD GOAL, $6,000,000)

UPDATE: The Board did not listen to Bill Stewart and decided not to move the $1.5 million of the Rate Stabilization Fund to the General Fund.  This action was only temporary because they got caught.

Once the Account Name (Rate Stabilization Fund to Restricted Funds) is changed (which is never done unless you are planning on doing something illegal), LMUD will find a way to move the $1.5 million dollars into the General Fund. Now that the Rate Stabilization Fund has been CO-MINGLED, LMUD will just simply move the $1.5 million  when  they think no one is looking The monthly Balance Sheet will be closely monitored, very closely monitored

The unfortunate fact is that the new audit company, Baker Tilly, will never know that this has been done. Traditionally, LMUD gives the outside auditor a few things to look at. LMUD could not survive a full State Audit.

Poor reporting: Bill Stewart put this folly together. Lassen County Times has traditionally covered up wrongdoing by LMUD.