Fiscal Responsibility – Gardner MA
The City of Gardner Massachusetts has accomplished successes in Fiscal Responsibility including, but not limited to:
Perfect Audits of its finances
Streamlined purchasing process
Strict scrutiny of the use of public funds via Purchasing Department, City Council Committees, Gardner City Council, and the Mayor’s office.
Gardner had a perfect Federal Audit of its finances for the 3rd straight year in a row.
The Fiscal 2024 budget was prepared so well it received no opposition from the Gardner City Council despite the scrutiny of various Committees.
GardnerMagazine.com spoke with Gardner Massachusetts Mayor Michael Nicholson about how the City managed to have a perfect Federal Audit 3 years in a row. Here’s what he had to say.
Mayor Nicholson: First off, I cant do this all by myself. ‘I’ve got to give a big shoutout to our city auditor, John Richard, who just is an amazing person and were extremely lucky to have him on our team here in Gardner. Same thing with our city treasurer, Jen Dymek, our city purchasing agent, Josh Cormier, and our city successor, Chris Kumar. That team there is the top notch team that we could have here if you there was an Olympics from municipal finance, they’d be getting the gold medal every time. But a lot of it comes down to the simple communication aspect of it. If we’re meeting once a month to go over everything as a group, myself and that team, to see where we are, to see where the budgets going, to see what procedures need to be followed. And if there’s stuff that comes up in between, were having those special meetings or those smaller one on one phone calls in between, to make sure that people are following what they need to follow the laws that are put in place. Specifically through DOR and the inspector generals office. DOR being the Department of Revenue, the inspector generals office oversees our purchasing procedures, all of those things. If were meeting what we need to on the local level, and preemptively making it so the state doesn’t have to come back and correct us, then were doing what we need to. And when you get used to dotting your eyes and crossing your t’s as part of regular practice, all of this becomes second nature, and that’s how we get to where we are.
The Mayor addressed specifically what Gardner is doing so much better.
Mayor Nicholson: I think, again, it just comes back to communication. Having worked in other locations and heard stories from other places. It feels like a lot of departments feel like they have to operate in silos. But what you do with that is Causes that disconnect where that’s where things fall to the cracks. But if you have a more cohesive unit, you’re dealing with those issues head on before they become issues. And that’s how were able to stay afloat.