Weekly Reflection: Three

    I learned a lot in this last week. I mostly worked on the OBRA retirement project and on finishing up the tailings list in order to lesson the overall variance in the system. I learned how to re-issue the manual checks in the Treasurer’s office with Joanne instead of issuing them through Sue in the Auditors Office. I also sat down a few times this week with John Turner from Nationwide to finish out my OBRA project. In the beginning, John gave me a list of 800 names that needed addresses and by the end I found 430 so he will be able to close out those people’s accounts with Nationwide, which is a good thing for both the individual and Nationwide.
    For the most part I liked what I was working on this week. I thought it was very cool to be able to find most of the variance in the system at Easthampton and be able to say where the money belonged instead of having it missing. This week, Melissa and I lessened the variance by more then 60%. I think that I was asked to work on finding the variance in the system because one wants the variance to be at zero going into a new fiscal year. One is allowed to write off some of it but only a couple thousand dollars. I was asked to do the OBRA retirement project because it was a project no one in the Treasurers Office had time to do so it was a perfect chance for me and Nationwide to work together. There were no big surprises in the office this week and everything went as planned.
    I had a fun last week at Easthampton City Hall. It was a great experience that I was able to take advantage of. I got to learn tons of new things to carry with me into college and even later in life. I met a lot of cool new people and got to see behind the scenes in a local government office. I had a lot of fun and will miss being there with everyone.

Day Thirteen: Thursday 26th

Today was a short day. I started by talking to my Sponsor about how sad it was that it was my last day.. She then went over the sponsor’s evaluation form with me to review my progress over the past three weeks. I then did a few money transfers and was able to do them on my own now which I thought was pretty cool. Next I worked on depositing some money by filling out deposit slips and making sure the money amount added up to the amount stated was being given to me by the certain department. Next I helped my sponsor re-organize her office since she had set it up with two desks just for me. We spent a lot of time on this and cleaning up. Next we had a nice lunch together and said our goodbyes. I will be returning on Tuesday to deliver some cookies to the city hall and say my last goodbyes. I had a great three weeks here and will miss the people a lot.

Day Twelve: Wednesday 25th

Today was a very busy day! When I first arrived at the office, I found the sheet of paper that John returned to me regarding the checks that were voided for the veterans. He told me that all the checks were cleared so that I could enter this amount into the cash book and lesson the variance even more. Judy also gave me the list back of people that we did not have addresses for for the OBRA retirement project. She knew 14 of the people so I could eliminate them form the list of people who did not have correct addresses. Next Chamele from the retirement office came in and asked us to stamp her checks for the people who receive retirement checks through her office. I stamped the checks for her and Melissa and I went over the amount that she said she was paying these people and see if it matched with the warrants. It did match so we stamped the checks and she was good to go. Next I worked on a proposal to the City Council for parking tickets. The rate of the parking ticket was being proposed to be raise my ten dollars and the mark fee by ten dollars. This made it so if a parking ticket was late now it would be sixty five dollars instead of forty five dollars. This extra money earned on parking tickets would go to maintaining the sidewalks of the city. Since this proposal is being proposed by Melissa (who is also the parking clerk) and the Chief of Police, we went over to the police station and dropped the proposal off in dispatch to be signed by the Chief tomorrow. This proposal will be presented to the City Council where they will vote on it to pass or not. Next I wrote a collection letter for an insufficient fund. Someone had written a bad check to the city so they are now charged the amount of the check plus twenty five dollars. I wrote this letter to the individual and a copy of the check that was not good for him to pay to the order of the treasurers office. Lastly I talked to Joanne about my poster board and presentation and began to plan out how it was all going to fit together. I had a fun but long day today.

Day Eleven: Tuesday 24th

The first thing I did today was initiated payment for this weeks payment for the city. This pays all the employees that work for the city of Easthampton. Next I went to work some more on the OBRA project. The spread sheet has a list of maybe 50 people who they do not have the correct address for. I printed out this list and gave it to Judy who works in the Personnels Office to see if she would recognize any of the names because she has worked for the city for such a long time. Judy will get back to be with the list if she notices anyone on that list tomorrow. After the OBRA project I payed the health insurance bill for the city and sent in child support wages to the state. I then worked on entering receipts for this week into the cashbook. I had a little mix up with the numbers but I figured it out. Lastly I worked some more on the tailing project. I found more checks (vet checks) that were cleared and subtracted them from our over all variance, so our variance dropped. Over all I have found more then 50% of the variance and am helping to get the city ready for the next fiscal year with a clean slate.

Day Ten: Monday 23rd

Today I continued to work on the tailings and OBRA project. I took all the forms that were sent back from the tailings project of people requesting their checks to be re-issued, and I gave them to Joanne and she will write manual checks for those people. Later on I entered the cleared checks from our tailings spread sheet into the cashbook to lesson the overall variance in the system. Next I met with John Turner from Nationwide. He explained some more specifics on the project and expressed some concerns. I more time finding address and trying to use the software correctly to find these individuals current addresses. Next a few people came into pay their parking tickets and we filled out some forms and cleared their parking ticket. It is important to call the DMV right after they pay off their parking ticket so people can have their cars registered, or license renewed. Lastly I filled out a form to claim abandoned money belonging to the city of Easthampton. Melissa found that this money was abandoned on the DOR abandoned property website. I searched for my mom, dad, and grandparents names on this website and found that my grandpa had a bunch of abandoned money and was able to show him how to claim it. Today was a long day and I will continue to work on the OBRA project tomorrow.

Weekly Reflection: Two

Going into this second week I felt a lot more confident. I learned a lot of new things, and I also had a solid understanding of last week's activities, making me feel more comfortable doing work on my own this week. I have continued to do things like balancing accounts, receipts, reconciliation, and tailings. This week though I have done two completely new activities. One new project was working with the OBRA retirement funds. This project so far has consisted of researching people who have previously worked for the City of Easthampton and have retired. They have a retirement account with OBRA and they have money in these accounts that has been sitting there for a while that needs to be taken out. I have been in contact with Mr. Turner from Nationwide who is helping me work on this project. I need to check that all the people have retired on his list, get the treasurer to sign off that they have retired and then Nationwide can contact the people to close their accounts. The second event that I attended, which was by far the coolest, was a trip to the State House in Boston, Massachusetts. On this trip I had the chance to meet with the legislator and senator that represent the region in which Easthampton is located. In the morning I listened to some speakers of the house speak about what is currently going on with our budget and income. One thing that I thought was really neat was that when we talked with other treasurers from other towns at this event, I actually knew what they were talking about and what “treasurer terms” they were using. Lastly, I had a tour around the State House. I learned about everything from what the art work represented on the walls, to how much the roof cost to coat in gold, to what the cod fish represented in the house of senate. I learned a lot on this trip and it was also really exciting. I had a great second week so far and I think have been reaching all my goals and meeting a lot of interesting people in the process.

Day Nine: Thursday 19th

Today I got up very early to meet up with other treasurers at the State House. Melissa and I drove to meet some treasurer on a bus that we all go to talk on on our way to the State House. This gave me some time to meet other people on the bus and talk to them about issues going on in their own towns. When we got to the State House we all met and had breakfast in the grand hall. The grand hall in a beautiful marble room with flags from every 351 cities in Mass. Next we listened to some people speak from the State House and then we were all dismissed to go talk with the legislature and senators that represented our regions. Then a few of the people in the group seperated and wondered around the building sitting in a the senators meeting in session and peeking into legislatures offices. Next we had lunch back in the grand hall. After lunch we had our photo taken on the grand staircase before our final event. Lastly we had a grand tour of the State House which was very interesting and I learned a lot. I loved the trip to the State House and think I got to learn a lot about the house as well as meet new treasurers from other towns in Mass.

Day Eight: Wednesday 18th

Today I worked some more on the OBRA project. I went through the rest of the files in KVS to find the termination date of the rest of the workers from the City. I found a lot of people who are currently active in the city (still working) so it was concerning that Mr. Turner had them on his retirement list from OBRA. Melissa was also concerned about how many active people there were on the list so she called him and he is coming in to meet with us on Monday morning. Next I transferred some more money into different accounts. After transferring some more money I worked on sending letters to people whose checks had bounced. People who issued checks to the city and did not have the money in their bank accounts, the checks bounced and so they are penalized. The individual is charged the amount of the check in addition to twenty five dollars for having the check bounce. Lastly I worked with a lady from the planning department who had a professional Auditor from the state coming into check out the files. He needed us to print out some copies of checks so that he could refer to them while going over the information that was recorded in the files and see if they matched. This was a long process because some checks were labeled as one but two checks were issued with the same check number for two different amounts. I also spent a little time with Melissa at the end of the day to go over our trip to the State House tomorrow in Boston. Im excited for our trip tomorrow to the State House and look forward to meeting with different Treasurers from around the state.

Day Seven: Tuesday 17th

Today was a slow and rainy day but it was still productive. I started by working with Melissa and balancing some accounts. We first found some errors in March that we fixed so that April was not unbalance anymore. This took a good part of the morning up to find all these errors. Next, I went back to finish up the tailings project. The only checks left that had not been sent out were the vet checks so we need to do more research on them. The reason it is weird that these checks are not cashed is because the vets are usually in the Veterans Service Office everyday waiting for their checks because they do not work anymore. (it is basically their pay check). I found some dates on them that will help me when I talk to John again tomorrow in the Veterans Service Office. John will be able to tell me if the checks have been voided or the payment was discontinued. Next I spent some time transfering money from different accounts so that when payroll is done for the high school it is in the right place. Also I worked a little bit today with the cashbook entering in warrants so the accounts would balance evenly. Lastly I met a guy who came into the office from Nationwide. He asked me to work on a project for him that might take a few days. At Nationwide they have accounts with money in them from people that have retired but have money in them they have earned at their previous jobs. This money was taken out of their paycheck every week. Nationwide wants to close all the accounts and give the people their money who have retired but in order to do this they need Melissa to sign off on all of them being retired. This requires me to get a list from Sandy who works in the school department office to give me a list of people who no longer work for the school. I got the list from the school department first because thats who most of the employees were who retired. I started looking through the 800 today and have 120 left to complete for tomorrow for the school department. I have a lot to do tomorrow and hope I can get it all done.

Day Six: Monday 16th

Today the first thing that I worked on was completed Payroll. I was given a few sheet from different department and so Melissa and I did them because Joanne was not there this morning. We went into KVS the accounting system and entered the times that people worked according to the sheets and the money they earn an hour into the system. Later when Joanne came in, she taught me how to proof the payroll and check for any mistakes. To proof the payroll we added up all the final amounts for each departments payroll and looked to see if Joanne and I got the same final number for payroll that the Sue in the Auditor's Office got. We got the same numbers so that meant that the numbers were correct and payroll was done and entered in the system. Later Joanne printed checks out for all departments and employees. I also worked with Melissa on finishing up some trust fund stuff because the codes were issued and given to Sue today to cut checks for but we needed to explain to here some things about the accounts the money was coming from. Also Sabrina dropped off some more of the money for the trusts so that the city could issue the high school their scholarship checks. I also checked the Treasurer's mail today and we received some of the tailings forms back explaining that the people would like the city to re-issue them a check to be deposited. We will issue those people back their checks later in the week when we get more forms returned. Also I spent some time researching addresses in order to disperse retirement money to people who are entitled to it. Lastly I made a direct deposit for payroll that we entered into the system that morning, so we took the money from the actual bank account and made a direct deposit.

Weekly Reflection: One

I had fun this week at the Easthampton City Hall in the Treasurer’s Office. I spent time this first week with the Assistant Treasurer, Joanne, and the Treasurer, Melissa, as well as people in other offices.
    This first week in the office I think I learned more in one week then I ever will. I learned how to communicate with other offices within City Hall to have different tasks completed. For example order to cut checks, I worked with Sue, the assistant Auditor, Sue, in the Auditor’s Office. I also learned how to balance the accounts that the City manages. I had an opportunity to meet with the Fire Chief, Dave Mottor, and help him close one of his accounts and move his money to another existing account managed by the City. I also learned how to use the accounting software on the computers so I could access things quickly and easily. Lastly, I sent notices to people to claim their unclaimed checks so they could be cleared in the system.
    I was asked to do many of the projects I did for my learning experiences and to understand the materials more clearly. I was asked to balance accounts because that is something done regularly on a monthly basis so one would need to know how to do this if they wanted to work in this office. I was also asked to work with Melissa with the tailings project because it is a big project that needed to be done and it not only goes a lot faster with two people but tailings had not been done in a while by the previous Treasurer so it needed to be done. I think that I have started working on some projects that will continue into the following weeks and I expect that I will benefit from having a good grasp on processes that take place every week.
    Given what I had heard from other people, I am surprised that this job is actually fun, but I really enjoy it. I have my own desk that is set up and I work there for the day with the help of Melissa and Joanne, and the day is over before I know it.    
    I did not know about everything I would be doing going into this internship, and it is very different then I expected.  However, I enjoy it and any surprises were positive. I think that this week has given me a solid introduction to the understanding of working on a weekly basis in the Treasurer’s Office. I had a good time this week and look forward to the next.

Day Five: Friday 13th

Today I went into the office even though the building is not open to the public on Friday's. I arrived at 8:30am and talked to the treasurer a little before our meeting with the principal's secretary from the Easthampton High School. She arrived a few minutes later and we all sat down and discussed the options she had for the high schools scholarships and trust money. We explained to the secretary that she could not offer an award for over $600 without filling out a ten ninety nine form so she decided to lower the higher award, which is good for their trust fund because they will earn more interest with more money in them for next years scholarships. Then when all the awards were figured out and set in place, Melissa and I worked together to find the codes for each funds account so that we could give them to the assistant auditor (Sue) on Monday so she can cut the checks. Lastly I worked on balancing some of the bank accounts that had been left alone for a few days. We found that one bank account was not adding up in particular so we worked on another one and realized our mistake in the other one while taking our minds off it and fixed them both. Today was a shorter day in the office and I left around 2:00pm.

Day Four: Thursday 12th

Today the first thing I did when I got there at 8:00am was record the receipts into the computer. Joanne had done them all and checked them once by hand and it was my job to put them into the computer spread sheet and see if they matched up with the numbers she got. The receipts are from deposits made that week from the accounts the city is in charge of. The next project I worked on was finding out more of the Veterans checks that should have been cashed and cleared because they mostly live from that money, or rely on it heavily. Some of the checks I looked up manually in the books that are kept, instead of the computer because there was no record of the checks in the system because they were from so long ago. (This project was part of the tailings). I then got the names of all the check holders from the manuel checks and then went to go talk to John who works in the Veterans Service office to see if he could help me find if the checks had been voided or not. He help me find some information out and then that job was put on hold because I was waiting for some more information. The next thing I worked on was for the Easthampton fire chief. He needed help with switching he accounts and closing one. There was some money that he could not find which Melissa and I helped him find that had been put into another one of his account by accident, so it was switched into a different one of his accounts. The treasurer helped me learn about taxtitle and I entered some of the information onto the computer to keep a log of it and give a copy to the legislature. What happens with the taxtitle is that it has to be done in a timely fashion. When a property owner is not paying taxes on their land they are warned and asked to pay their taxes. Betty who works in the clerks office try’s to get them to pay there taxes for a few years and then if they still don’d Betty will file a lean. A lean explains that the city is interested in the land and in six months the land will be for closed. If there is a developed that wants to take the land and work on it and pay taxes that is great for the city and they will pick that as their first choice. If no one wants to develop the land it will be auctioned off. The City Hall is not officially open on Friday’s but since I was sick and missed a day I will be going in tomorrow for a shorter day. Also I will be meeting with the lady in charge of the scholarship and graduation money and trust with the treasurer tomorrow to work things out.

Day Three: Wednesday 11th

Today I was sick with a fever and not able to go to the Easthampton City Hall so I stayed home. I decided to knit a hat to contribute to Mer's Knit-A-Thon so I could at least help another classmate out with their senior project.

Day Two: Tuesday 10th

Today I worked with the Treasurer mostly from 8:00am to 5:00pm. This morning when I first arrived I began right away finishing the search for people's addresses that did not have cleared checks. Once I went into the accounting software and found all the addresses, I sat down with the treasurer and created a short letter to the individuals that needed to clear their checks. Melissa the treasurer and I created the letter stating that the individuals had to fill out the form included in the envelope with the check number and amount and return that form to the Treasurers Office so the Melissa could issue them a temporary check to be cashed or deposited. After the letter was created I learned how to create a mail merge. This meant that I would take each individuals address, name, check number, amount, and check date and put it onto each letter. Instead of copying and pasting all the information from the spread sheet to each letter, I hit the created a mail merge so that each person's information went from the spread sheet onto its own letter. After all these were completed I printed them out and the form that was needed, and put them in envelopes to be shipped out. If the individuals do not reply to the letter to claim their money there will be a form that they can come to the treasurers office to fill out to claim their money, but after that the city is legally aloud to claim those uncleared checks after notifying the individuals. The next project I worked on was finishing up a purchase order. Yesterday I filled out a purchase order form saying that the Melissa would like to pay off a loan that the city needed to pay. I dropped the purchase order of at the mayor's office (Mike) because he needs to look and enter all purchase orders in the system and sign them off saying they are okay. Today the purchase order was signed and delivered back to Joanne's desk this morning and so I made a copy of it to keep on record for a year to make sure the transaction goes through. After making a copy I took the original to Sue who is the assistant auditor in the auditors office and put it on the shelf with other bills that need to be paid. The next thing I worked on was initiating the direct deposit order to pay the people in the city hall. Joanne gave me the list and we went into the online banking system and paid all the people in the offices. After Melissa realized there was not enough money to cover the payroll in that account so we wired money from another account over to the account we were using to cover the payroll. When Melissa and I were done with payroll a lady came into drop of meal tax return information from the Easthampton High School. To file and pay this meal tax return we needed to go into the bank account that deals with the high school and file a tax return. When we figured the amount that was due for the tax return we entered that amount into the spread sheet where everything is kept on file. The last thing that I worked on with Melissa was scholarship funds for the public high schools graduation prizes. Previously Melissa had sent the high school a spread sheet saying how much each scholarship trust had in it and how much interest that trust made this year. There are a lot of scholarship trusts that are awarded at the end of each year and each trust fund was given with guidelines to follow. This meant that if someone gave money to the high school say $100 to be put into a trust fund and used for a scholarship every year, with only the interest hat it makes per year, the school can only award the recipient the amount in interest that that trust earned not any of the $100. Other accounts say that you can use the the interest and some of the trust money in the bond. When Melissa received the request of money they wanted to award within each scholarship they had awarded more money then they had and not followed the guidelines of the trusts. This meant that Melissa and I had to go through each scholarship award and see what the guidelines were and correct the sheet that was requested for scholarship money. I had a long full day today and hope to continue things tomorrow.

Day One: Monday 9th

Today was my first day on senior projects and I had a lot of fun. I arrived at City Hall at 7:45am and began working at 8:00am. When I first got there, I was given an explanation of what was going on that day and what I would be doing from my sponsor Joanne (the assistant treasurer). After establishing what I was going to be working on for the day I was introduced to the other people and departments in Easthampton City Hall. After meeting the people that I would be working with over the coarse of the next few weeks I went to work on my first task. My first task was to get familiar with the accounting software that is used at the City Hall. Once I was able understand it I went to work on reconciling bank statements for the deposit accounts. I was given a folder of bank statements from different banks and bank accounts and needed to enter the interest earned that period and the ending balance of that account. I entered these numbers in a spread sheet for each account. The ultimate goal was to have the remainder come to equal zero after entering that periods interest earned and ending balance for the month. If there was no extra amount the account was done and the bank statements could be filed away. However, if there was a remainder, I needed to look back through the statement and check the deposit and see if they matched the ones that were entered in the spread sheet and also maybe if the deposits missing had been put into a different account by accident. After I finished reconciling the bank statements I moved onto another activity. The next job I started working on was to research the tailing's. This job first consisted of looking through the outstanding checks that have not been cashed yet by individuals and making sure that those checks were still not cashed or if they had been mark them off as cleared. I found a few large checks that were on the list of ones that had not been cleared but when I checked them online with the bank, they had actually been cashed. This was helpful to the Treasury department because it meant that variance was found in the checks that were cleared, so the Treasurer found out were money was, when it was marked not found and missing in the variance. Most of the stuff in the Treasurers office is done in a cycle through the weeks starting on Wednesday, so today when I jumped in to work, I jumped into the middle of the cycle or processing things. It will be easier for me to understand the overall process of things after a weeks rotation of things that need to be done in order instead of jumping in in the middle of things. I had a great first day and look forward to going back tomorrow morning.