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California State Auditor Logo COMMITMENT • INTEGRITY • LEADERSHIP

City of Lincoln
Financial Mismanagement, Insufficient Accountability, and Lax Oversight Threaten the City’s Stability

Report Number: 2018-110

SUMMARY

Incorporated in 1890, the city of Lincoln operates under the council-manager form of government: its city council is responsible for its governance, while a city manager oversees the city’s operations. From 2000 through 2010, Lincoln was one of the fastest growing cities in the nation, expanding from 11,000 to 43,000 residents. However, by the end of the decade, the local and national economies were in decline, and Lincoln’s development was severely curtailed. The city experienced significant fiscal challenges as a result. In fact, Lincoln fully depleted its unrestricted general fund balance in fiscal year 2008–09, although it had increased the balance to $8.7 million by fiscal year 2016–17. In recent years, a citizens group raised concerns related to Lincoln’s finances, including its interfund loans and transfers, the fees it charged the public, its use of municipal utilities, and its general management of public funds. Our report concludes the following:


Lincoln Made Questionable Loans, Transfers, and Allocations That Did Not Always Comply With State Law

Lincoln established restricted funds related to its different functions to ensure that it uses the revenue it receives for the purposes for which that revenue was intended. However, it used those funds to make unrelated interfund loans and transfers that it may not be able to repay. Further, as a result of loans and transfers, the city misrepresented the financial position of several funds: although these funds had year-end deficits, the loans and transfers made them appear as though they had positive fund balances. Finally, Lincoln violated the state constitution by using surplus revenue that property owners in certain areas paid in landscaping and lighting assessments to cover costs associated with properties in other areas.


Lincoln Did Not Accurately Charge the Public for Certain City Services

Lincoln overcharged developers and builders for water infrastructure and capacity, thereby accumulating a fund balance of nearly $41 million as of June 2017. Further, Lincoln undercharged the public for other services, such as building inspections and permit administration. Lincoln also violated provisions of the state constitution by failing to pay for its own use of municipal utilities, including water, sewer, and trash collection; it instead passed these costs on to ratepayers through increased utility rates. Lincoln has not refunded or provided equitable consideration to ratepayers for the increases in their rates resulting from the city’s use of utilities.


Lincoln Did Not Establish or Consistently Follow Key Policies and Procedures to Ensure the Appropriate Management of Public Funds

Lincoln lacks key policies and procedures to ensure consistency, compliance, and transparency in its financial practices. Moreover, Lincoln did not follow its existing policies by obtaining the appropriate approval from the city manager or the city council for expenditures, resulting in questionable spending.



In addition, we reviewed the city’s failure to update its master fee schedule and its inability to substantiate fee credits it granted to developers, as well as other issues related to its investment portfolio and a councilmember’s activities. We found that Lincoln could improve its processes in some of these areas, and we present the related recommendations in the section of this report titled Other Areas We Reviewed.

Summary of Recommendations

To ensure that it complies with state law, Lincoln should immediately review all outstanding interfund loans and confirm that the loans can be repaid.

To comply with state law, Lincoln should immediately discontinue using restricted funds to subsidize other unrelated funds that have year-end deficits.

To ensure that its fees are commensurate with the cost of providing services, Lincoln should develop and begin following by June 2019 a timeline for conducting fee studies of each of its services.

Lincoln should develop a plan to provide equitable consideration to ratepayers for the utility costs they incurred that were higher than necessary because of the city’s practice of not paying for its own municipal utilities.

Lincoln should establish and follow policies and procedures for financial practices recommended by the Government Finance Officers Association.

The city manager should immediately develop and implement procedures for staff to obtain and document the required approval from the city manager or the city council before committing city resources.

Agency Comments

Lincoln agreed with all of our recommendations and indicated that it has already begun implementing some of them. We look forward to reviewing Lincoln’s 60-day, six-month, and one-year responses to our recommendations to evaluate its progress.



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