Appleton is out roughly $310,000 in transportation aid after missing the deadline to file its annual audit, a penalty that Mayor Jake Woodford says the city could have avoided. The missed filing has already begun reshaping budget talks for next year, and city officials are still trying to finish the overdue audit while figuring out how to cover the loss.
The city of Appleton was hit with a hefty penalty for missing a July audit deadline, according to wtaq.com, which reported that misstep cost the city about $310,000 from its transportation aid budget. Woodford said the city took on a new finance director in the middle of the audit process, a transition he pointed to as a key factor behind the delay.
New Finance Director Caught in the Middle of an Overdue Audit
Woodford said the hiring of finance director Jennifer Messerschmidt complicated an already difficult process. Our new finance director had to work to pull together the information that was needed, he said, per fox11online.com. The outlet also reported that the city is still working to complete the audit even now.
The same report notes that the transition was hampered by old technology and systems used for previous budgets and audits, according to razorwisconsin.com. That outlet also reported Woodford said he is not yet ready to release his proposed 2027 budget, a sign of how far the delay has rippled into the city's planning calendar.
Budget Planning Thrown Off Course
The missed deadline is now affecting the city's budget planning process, the earlier wtaq.com report noted. Appleton Finance Director Jennifer Messerschmidt and Woodford faced pointed questions from members of the finance committee as officials sought to understand how the city missed the annual audit filing deadline, according to Duke Behnke's reporting for the Appleton Post-Crescent.
The money at stake is not abstract. The transportation aid money is used to cover a portion of expenses for things like road construction and maintenance, per the same fox11online.com account. Woodford said the $310,000 was avoidable, according to that report, underscoring frustration among officials that routine paperwork delays carry such a direct cost to infrastructure funding.
How the City Might Cover the Shortfall
Woodford has floated two options for absorbing the loss. Either absorbing that $310,000 with resources available at the end of the fiscal year, he said, or turning to city reserve funds, per fox11online.com's report. He has also recommended bringing on outside consulting to review our processes and procedures and to build standard operating procedures for us, the station reported, a step aimed at preventing a repeat of this year's delay.
State law is what sets the financial consequences for missing these filings. Wisconsin's Department of Transportation says the general transportation aid amount payable to a local government may be reduced for each working day after the applicable due date that the financial report is late, according to the Wisconsin Department of Transportation. Separate state statute also caps how steep these reductions can get, noting that no municipality may receive a decrease in its annual transportation-aid payment in excess of 10% of its previous calendar year's payment, per the Wisconsin Legislature.
Appleton is not the only local government in the state to stumble over financial reporting deadlines. An independent audit of the Department of Public Instruction found about a quarter of Wisconsin's school districts missed the deadline to file financial statements in the 2022-23 school year, according to WPR. For Appleton, the immediate task remains finishing the overdue audit and deciding how the $310,000 gap gets filled as next year's budget takes shape.
