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RTI ee Sr rn Te TE ie rT
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City may consider
hiring jreeze
10-A
Vol. 107 No. 2
J. C. Bridges, right, chairman of the Kings Mountain Hospital Board
of Trustees, welcomes Jim Rose, Chairman of the Cleveland Memorial
Hospital Board of Trustees, to a dinner meeting Monday in Kings
Mountain.
City of Kings Mountain
still behind on payments
Seven months into the new fiscal
‘year, the City of Kings Mountain is still
not paying bills on time.
.On Monday afternoon, the
Kings Mountain was looking for
$86,000 to pay a bill from Duke Power
‘of $375,000 which was due December
18.
~~ It had unpaid bills, as of the June 30th
‘audit of $314,330, and was facing a
million bond
City of improvements.
quickly as possible.
weekly payroll Thursday of $65,000.
Add Transco's transportation
cost of $60,000 which was due January
ung.
EHEL
a 10 and the bills keep moun
| The city must make the
$150,000 plus $5700 interest.
“payments in two months that
“must pay. In addition, interest is due
“again on bond payments: in September
$261,076.25 and in October $5700.
© Finance Director Maxine Parsons
“expects a check for $210,000 in property
‘taxes that she is applying to a reserve
-account to help pay the bonds.
Parsons said the city has almost paid
Auditor says underspending, freeze improved budget
Underspending the budget and a spending and
hiring freeze for three months from March until
-June improved the audit report for FY 1993-94.
City Auditor Darrell Keller had some good
news and some bad news for Kings Mountain
City Council Thursday as he presented the audit
for Council's review and expected adoption on
January 31.
The good news was that the city had paid down
its past due accounts payable by more than
$700,000 from more than $1 million.
"The bad news was that the city remains in a se-
rious financial condition that he
1 bond payment of $325,000 plus $
interest of $261,076.25 and on April 1
must make another bond payment of
That's a total of $741,776.25 in bond
monthly
~ every 90 days, th
the city :
retirees.
in full the 1969 water bond issue which
was wrapped around the most recent $9
issues
City Manager Chuck Nance has
talked with Duke Power, the city's
supplier of electricity, about the city's
serious financial problem and has
promised that payments will be made as
"We were paying our vendors about
it got to 60 days and.
In addition to the weekly payroll, the
city's payroll taxes run $17,000 each
week, the insurance bill tops $35,000 for
the 160 (plus employees and elected
officials, plus $850 for insurance of
The city also pays $20,000 to the state
for retirement and for its contribution to
401K and law enforcement plans and this
insurance premium is due by the 10th of
each month. Workmen's compensation
and liability insurance each quarter
accounts for another $66,000.
Mountaineers defeat fi
South Paint g-A i
Te BE
Thursday, January 12, 1995
A task force is expected to
be named soon by the chairmen
of the Kings Mountain Hospital
and Cleveland Memorial
Hospital boards of trustees to
continue talks on possible
merger and to review indepth a
consultants assessment of medi-
cal needs for the community at
large.
Fourteen members represent-
ing the two boards got together
for an informal dinner meeting
Monday at Kings Mountain's
Holiday Inn at the invitation of
the Shelby board.
Because it is an expensive
endeavor, CMH president
Austin Letson said Kings
Mountain Hospital might con-
sider several potential merger
partners, including Carolinas
Medical Center which is affili-
ated with both hospitals.
"We want merger to be suc-
cessful,” said Letson who said
both hospitals could achieve
more in a collaborative effort.
J. C. Bridges, chairman of
Kings Mountain's board of
trustees, said it is unrealistic to
dream that the local community
could raise $500,000 for the re-
vitalization of the local hospital.
"It 4dsn’t easy 10. get a
$125,000 goal for United Fund
Wo A RTP a pr
Kings Mountain, N.C. » 28086 * 50¢
and I just don't think we could
raise the amount of money that
the consultant suggests in his
report,” said Bridges, who pre-
sented a report from the study
of affiliation requirements pre-
sented to KMH officials last
week by Atlanta consultant
Alex Scott. The study was fund-
ed by a HUD grant acquired by
Carolinas Medical Center.
In the report, Bridges said
that Scott emphasized merger as
Kings Mountain Hospital's hope
for survival in his affiliation
study which suggested KMH
consider a merger with larger
hospitals in the immediate re-
$1,187,020
$1,200,000
$1,091,767
$1,000,000
for utility
$800,000
$600,000
$386,994
$400,000
$200,000
$0
$17,972
June 30,
1994
$276,344
June 30,
June 30,
1991
June 30,
1993
June 30,
1992
1990
School.
June 30,
June 30,
1989
1988
$22,500,000
$20,000,000
remedied by not spending and putting some mon-
ey in reserves for emergencies.
~ The city ended its fiscal year June 30, 1994
with a balance of $17,972.
Keller said the city doesn't keep enough money
in the bank to meet its weekly payroll of $65,000,
"You don't have any reserves for a federal man-
date, a natural disaster or a recession. You are in a
said can only be
serious situation here. .
"I wouldn't spend a dime unless something just
died in the street,” he said, noting that expendi-
tures should be kept at a minimum.
However, he said that paying bills late but be-
$17,500,000
$15,000,000
$12,500,000
$10,000,000
$7,500,000
$5,000,000
$2,500,000 iy
© $0
Kings Boiling Cherryville Spindale Forest
Mt. Springs ity
* $17,972 » $741,362 »$3,124954 + $3,800,000 $15,640,473
Source * $21,357,081 * $911,200 0 $8291,490 © $2,942,396 $25,543,380
Darrell Keller, cPA [ll Budget Hl Total Cash & Investments
fore they were 60 days overdue alse caused a part
of the budget problem.
Because no revenue was received in time to
balance the payments, the city developed its cash
flow problems.
City Manager Chuck Nance said after the meet-
ing that the city had never been able to pay its
bills earlier than 60-90 days in some time. He
said the city had apparently been able to keep its
head above water through creative accounting
and due to a hiring and spending freeze initiated
See Improvement, 10-A
| LGC still not pleased with KM accounting practice
The Local Government
Commission issued a strong
reprimand to the City of Kings
Mountain in a letter under date
of January 5 regarding the prac-
tice of shifting money from
place to place on paper when
there was no money in the bank
to support the transfer.
Apparently the practice 1s le-
gal and has been done since the
onset of the city manager/coun-
cil form of government. The
L.GC has warned City Council
for four years that transfers
should be reduced.
City Auditor Darrell Keller
said that although the city has
appeared to have enough money
coming in to cover its expenses,
transfers from the city's utility
fund were occurring on paper
before the money was actually
in the bank.
"That sounds to me like that
could be illegal,” said
Councilman Rick Murphrey at
Thursday's Council meeting
when Council heard a 90-
minute presentation of the audit.
But Keller assured Council
that the method of accounting
was not illegal.
Transfers from the electric
fund to the general fund have
significantly increased by Kings
Mountain since 1986, according
to a statistical analysis by
Electric Power Utilities. The
City of Kings Mountain has
transferred from the electric
fund to its general fund as a per-
centage of general fund rev-
enues these amounts: 1986 -
19.83; 1987- 25.97; 1988 -
19.68; 1989 - 63.62; 1990 -
50.49; 1991. - 50.27; 1992 -
48.43.
The LGC must approve the
city budget every year and this
year sent the audit back to
Keller for corrections.
Specifically, the financial
statements showed a large dif-
ference between the general
fund's cash balance and its fund
balance. The cash balance, re-
ported in the auditor's state-
See LGC, 2-A
Lawsuit filed against county for appointments
Legal action was filed Friday
morning in Federal Court in
Charlotte by The Cleveland
County Association for
Government by the People
(CCAGP) to challenge a
Consent Decree now pending
final approval of a Federal
Judge in Washington, DC and
its subsequent implementation
by the Cleveland County Board
of Commissioners.
The motion asks the Western
District Court to issu¢ a prelim-
nary injunction and a tempo-
rary restraining order against
execution of the agreement.
The Consent Decree, formu-
lated by the Board of
Commissioners and the local
chapter of the National
Association for the
Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP) provides for
the direct appointment of two
African American commission-
ers for four-year terms; rear-
ranging clection schedules so
that all four-year terms for com-
missioners will run concurrent-
ly: and, in 1998, with seven
commissioners to be elected, all
Cleveland County voters would
be limited to only four votes.
The CCAGP suit is being
handled by Neil Williams of the
Charlotte law firm of Horack,
Talley, Pharr and Lowndes and
Attorney Robinson O. Everett
of Durham.
This legal challenge arises
under the Fourteenth and
Fiftcenth Amendments of the
Constitution of the United
States and also under Article 1.
Section 19, of the North
Carolina Constitution. These
provisions include the "equal
protection” clause, the "right (o
vote" guarantees and other pro-
visions under both the United
States and the North Carolina
Constitution.
The CCAGP is a voluntary,
nonprofit and unincorporated
association of citizens and 1s not
associated with any political
party or political candidate. Its
members. individually and col-
lectively, have expressed their
concern and their belief that
provisions of the Consent
Decree are in violation of their
Constitutional rights and thus
the guarantees accorded to ev-
cry citizen of Cleveland County.
See Suit, 10-A
tive.
Task force to study merger
gion and named CMH, Gaston
Memorial Hospital, Charlotte
Presbyterian Hospital and
Carolinas Medical Center.
It was also suggested that
$1.2 million be earmarked for a
physician's center on the KMH
campus and that the merger
partner would probably need to
put up $3.5 million.
Bridges said he thought that
figure could be a< high as $4
million to improve the facility
and equipment, recruit more
physicians and regain accredita-
tion from the Joint Commission
See Hospitals, 16-A
Family Life curriculum
available for inspection
Members of the community will have an op-
portunity for input into the proposed Kings
Mountain Schools Family Life policy at a public
meeting February 6 at 7 p.m. at the Middle
The School Board heard first reading of the
policy at Monday night's regular monthly meeting
at Central School. As is customary, the Board
leaves a new policy on the table for a month be-
fore officially approving it.
In this case, the Board said it may leave the
policy on the table even longer, depending upon
whether or not the February 6 meeting is ample
time to address the concerns of citizens.
The presentation of the policy by the Health
Council Monday night culminated almost a year
of work by the Council's volunteer members.
‘Chairperson Wanda May said the group met
+ & «monthly since the spring; and since August bas.
met four times a month.
"We went over it and went over it until we
thought we had met everybody's needs," she said.
"We hope it's acceptable for all.”
The proposed policy addresses the concerns of
many citizens who complained last year that the
sex education curriculum was not age appropriate
for middle school students. Many topics that con-
cerned parents, such as masturbation and homo-
sexuality, will not be taught in the future if the
policy is adopted. y
May and school officidls said the comprehen-
sive curriculum will stress abstinence until mar-
riage and monogamy in marriage and the policy
will allow parents to have their children excluded
from the classes. Also, parents who want their
children taught only the section of the curriculum
that deals with HIV/AIDS will have that preroga-
"We basically tried to provide a comprehensive
curriculum but be attentive within it to emphasize
values that the community of Kings Mountain has
held for a long time," said Supt. Bob McRae. "It
does still provide contraceptive information but it
tries to do so only as a last resort and only after
promoting abstinence until marriage and teaching
very strongly that pre-marital sexual activity is
not inevitable nor is it reversible if a young per-
son has begun it. We also tried to be sure that
we've taken out of the curriculum any point that,
while they were factual, may not be critical to the
teaching of the curriculum and may be sensitive
to the values of the community."
See Curriculum, 3-A
TEEN SPEAKER - Lin Dawson talks about Project Teamwork, »
national initiative to reduce prejudice and violence with the youth of
this country, during a program before English students at Kings
Mountain High School.