Finance committee recommends paying $120,083 in unpaid bills, cites late UMass Dartmouth invoices

The Nantucket County Finance Committee voted unanimously Monday to recommend paying $120,082.90 in unpaid bills left from prior fiscal years, the committee’s finance director said.

The unpaid-bills total includes a $99,420 invoice from UMass Dartmouth that arrived too late to be encumbered for the prior fiscal year, Brian Turbot, the town’s finance director, told the committee. “This is actually UMass Dartmouth’s fault,” Turbot said, describing it as two years of invoices paid from UMass Dartmouth’s operating budget that the town did not receive in time.

The committee recommended covering the general-fund portion from free cash and using retained earnings to pay unpaid bills at the airport and Island Home, Turbot said. He also praised the Department of Public Works for having no unpaid bills this year: “Their office staff did a really great job of making sure that they got all their encumbrances in for the year.”

The motion to accept the appropriation was made by Peter and seconded by Jill; the committee approved the item on a unanimous roll-call vote.

The committee did not change the funding sources on the floor; Turbot had proposed taking the general-fund amount from free cash, and airport and Island Home amounts from their retained earnings. The vote was procedural and does not change the town’s accounting treatment beyond the appropriation recommended to the warrant for annual town meeting.

The finance director said the airport had “a very good year” with only $1,504 in unpaid bills and Island Home had one unpaid bill of $5,563. The committee’s unanimous recommendation sends the unpaid-bills appropriation forward to the warrant for town meeting action.

A roll-call tally recorded all present committee members voting yes.