Town of Apple Valley paid former Flint finance director for water study

The Town of Apple Valley paid the Former Finance Director for the City of Flint hundreds of thousands of dollars for an independent financial analysis of Measure F, the $150 million bond associated with their attempted eminent domain takeover of their private water company.

In 2016, former Flint, MI Finance Director Marc Puckett agreed to be paid $322,217 for the fiscal year ending in July 2017! This is someone who Flint City Councilman Scott Kinkaid once said should have been terminated.

The previous year (2016), Puckett was paid $314,109 by the Town of Apple Valley. Former Flint Journal Columnist Andrew Heller once referred to Puckett as the former finance director who resigned after costing the city a million dollars for screwing up the pension funds.

Puckett, current Apple Valley Finance Director and former Flint Finance Director, in his independent report is obscuring the fact that the funds for Apple Valley Water infrastructure improvements come from $4.2 million in net revenues, plus an additional $2 million a year from Liberty Utilities. Puckett’s plan would eliminate funds for water infrastructure improvements, and open up Apple Valley ratepayers to at least $500 — each year — in higher water fees to pay for a $150 million debt.

Puckett’s analysis is the sole analysis being used in taxpayer-funded videos, as well as soon to come taxpayer-funded mailers.

The one and only financial expert to weigh in for the Town of Apple Valley on the financial cost of the $150 million dollar bond — Marc Puckett — once cost the City of Flint’s taxpayers over $1 million before resigning in disgrace.

An outside auditor was brought into Flint following his resignation and found the following:

  • From 1996 to Puckett’s exit, the City incorrectly misdirected some $6 million in property tax payments.
  • From 1996 to Puckett’s exit, Puckett as Finance Director failed to pay millions in industry facility and commercial facility taxes to the State Government.
  • The city violated state law by spending beyond the budget adopted by the City Council in certain areas.
  • A lack of employees in the City Finance and Budget department resulted in transactions not being recorded on the city’s general ledger in a timely way, making it impossible to compare the city budget to its actual spending on a monthly or quarterly basis.

Again, this is the person that the Town of Apple Valley has paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in the past year — and the sole financial expert for the Town regarding Measure F.

Puckett’s mishandling of the City of Flint’s Finance Department had ramifications for years to follow for the people of Flint. Soon after Puckett’s resignation, the Mayor who hired Puckett was recalled due to the disastrous financial state the City was in. A year after that, the State of Michigan installed an Emergency Manager to handle Flint’s finances. It was the state’s Emergency Manager who recommended switching to the Flint River as a water source. That decision led to the #FlintWaterCrisis.

Source: Apple Valley Citizens on Medium