Today, the San Pedro Town Council did something no other town council has done in this three year term which ends in March.
It held a press conference to present its audited financials for the years ended 2021 and 2022.
Jules Vasquez went to San Pedro for the big reveal - which didn't feel like such a big reveal after all. Here's his story:
It was a kind of nondescript vanilla event - in the low-lit conference room at the Sunbreeze Hotel - the San Pedro Town council's management team presented their audited financials for 2021 and 2022 - a rarity for any town council:
Wally Nunez, Mayor - San Pedro Town Council
"But this is an independent audit, which has never been done before and it is something that we owe it to the people because it is their money that we are managing."
Mayor Wally Nunez said all the right things - and his councillors and area rep dutifully paid keen attention in the front row.
But if the event lacked any sense of moment or urgency - it's because it's a presentation which might have only impressed accountants.
But the mayor did tell a tale of salvaging the town council from financial wreckage - which he found it in - in 2021:
Wally Nunez, Mayor - San Pedro Town Council
"We realized quickly that if we put the system in place to manage these funds, the money is coming in, nobody is stealing it. It can go to good use and we started paying off our bills. We started to control the management of the council being able to pay off all our debts. And on top of that, our daily operations."
The tales of a council in financial shambles do boggle the mind - to think that public funds could be administered so loosely:
Angie Rosado, Accountant Manager
"We had residents coming in to get a property tax statement. Upon getting their statements, residents realized that payments made for previous years were not being reflected in their accounts. This posed a lot of challenges for us. We had to work with the residents to ensure that the payments that they had made were accounted for."
"Essential information not available. We did not have a fixed asset. register. We did not know at this point what the council owned. No reference points for financial transactions."
Rene Guzman, Town Admin.
"Our cashiers at the town council at the time were using basic Excel software for collecting of fees and also for implementing or putting in what was collected daily and writing receipts manually. With the new software that we have, it provides a soft copy that the customer receives and a hard copy is in the system and once a payment is made you come in you pay your property taxes that automatically reflects in the system reduces your balances and shows real-time updated information of what is owed."
They say they spent two years course correcting the irregularities - and are financially stable:
Wally Nunez, Mayor - San Pedro Town Council
"We haven't had a need for an overdraft since June of 2021. We have a healthy cash flow in the Town Council that we have been able to do works and the daily operations and we are in a comfortable way moving forward."
"I wish we would have inherited the Town Council like that. A lot more could have been done."
In Belizean politics, it's a familiar refrain in each political cycle - "the other guy had the money all messed up" - but voters aren't often swayed by power point presentations - and this council will still have to do its work in the community to be re-elected.
