Just a miscommunication

Yesterday, on the front page of my local newspaper, I read that my county government recently found several million dollars that had been sitting in it’s bank account, unaccounted for, since 2007! Apparently, in November 2007, the school system transferred payroll funds that were unspent back to the county government, but the county government never recorded them as received. So when the country Treasurer, earlier this year, said the school had this money, the school system said they didn’t.

So the country hired an auditor to look at the books, and guess what? The money was sitting in the bank, unaccounted for.

Reading further, the article explained that after this audit, all parties agreed that this situation was no one’s fault; it was just a miscommunication.

Part of the explanation for the unaccounted funds was because the county government and the school system have the same bank account but separate accounting records. This practice of having one bank account is common in Virginia, since it helps to lower bank fees and earn higher interest rates, the article explained.

The miscommunication occurred when the school system recorded a $6.2M transfer back to the county on their books, but the county refused to record the income transaction on their side, because county government officials thought this was a payroll accounting error. So the $6.2M transfer was reflected as an expense in the school system’s books, but was never recorded as income in the county government’s books. Also, the article explained, in 2007 the county government and the school system had separate audits, so neither auditing firm was aware of the missing side of the transaction.

Just a miscommunication?

And in 2008, and now in 2009, there have been layoff’s and hiring freezes in our county schools.

Just a miscommunication?

And the county saved a few bucks in bank fees and earned a few dollars in extra interest earnings because there was only one bank account, but it also had three (expensive?) audits instead of one. And the net effect of those transactions… well, no one is saying.

And how is it that a county government cannot negotiate a better deal with the bank for lower bank fees and higher interest rates. If the funds are in one account or two, they would still be in a single bank. I bet if the county decided to send some of the funds to a different account at another bank, the bank would reconsider. But maybe no one has ever asked the bank to reconsider.

Just a miscommunication?

And the missing funds were not discovered until the summer of 2009, when the County Treasurer said the school had $5.6M in surplus funds “that were being carried on the county’s books because of a school system payroll accounting error.

So let’s think about this for a minute.

$6.2M was recorded by the school as an expense in 2007. The school gave that money back to the county. How did $6.2 get reduced to $5.6 in 2009? Doesn’t that mean that either the school system and/or the county government overspent their budget by $600K?

Does the county government reconcile it’s bank account? They only have one, after all. It shouldn’t be that difficult. But then again, how do you reconcile when you are only responsible for some of the bank activity.


Don’t the auditors for the school system and the county government get a list of transfers to and from each other’s books and reconcile those transfers? Was it a case where the auditors assumed such a large transaction could not have been recorded incorrectly?

Just a miscommunication?


Miscommunication. According to Dictionary.com, the definition of this word is to communicate mistakenly, unclearly, or inadequately.

I think our county government has redefined miscommunication to mean a politically correct way for all parties to avoid responsibility and accountability.

I bet there will be no miscommunication, though, if I forget to pay my personal property taxes in December.

Giving Thanks

On eve of the first Thanksgiving holiday of my new blog, I find that writing about those things I am most thankful for is the easiest entry I have tackled so far.


Although my list is long, the majority of my thankfulness extends to the love I receive, every day, from AJ. The best decision I ever made in my life was when I decided to put aside my shyness, turn around, walk back to where she was sitting and introduce myself to her. I always look back in wonder at the first time we met; we were both at a point of time in our lives that allowed us to be together with less drama than very likely would have ensued if we met at any other time. Although it seems like only yesterday, many years have passed quickly since then. I am so very thankful I decided to turn around.


I am also thankful for all of the love I receive from my family, her family, and all of our friends.  I will never be able to say enough about all of the emotional support I receive from them.



I am thankful for my job, because although it is not perfect (like most jobs, I suspect), the people I work with are some of my closest friends. I am also thankful for technology, because today I could telecommute from home and I didn’t have to fight the traffic out of DC, down I-95, on probably the worst travel day of the year.


I am thankful for our two cats, who are both getting older, right along with us, but they both still seem to be enjoying life, and they occasionally honor us with their attention, when they have time. :-)


I am thankful for my good health (sore shoulder notwithstanding). The older I get, the more I appreciate that incredible gift.


I am thankful, too, that I was born in the United States. I am thankful I was born at a time in this country when females are allowed to vote, allowed to work in almost any profession, allowed to have children (or not), and raise them with a husband or wife/partner or by herself, and is free to live with a man, a woman, or by herself, as she prefers.


And I am thankful that I am allowed to write this blog, without government interference, or editing by anyone else.


And finally I am thankful to God, who created everything in my world, and allowed me, with all my faults, to live in it and enjoy it. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Frozen, not frigid

I have a pain in my upper arm that has been interrupting my sleep. My friends diagnosed me as having frozen shoulder. I had never heard of this but after researching it on the internet it does sound similar to my condition. Fortunately, my symptoms are much milder than those described by other sufferers on the websites. I only have problems lifting my right arm. Some of these people have difficulty reaching behind their backs, which causes all kinds of difficulties in the bathroom. I guess I am lucky I don’t have that problem. According to these online sources this type of condition will eventually heal itself after about 2 years. During those 2 years, stretching exercises and pain medication help, unless you are in a hurry or in too much pain, in which case cortisone shots and/or surgery are options.


From what I read, this type of injury is more common in women, especially as they age, and it is caused, sometimes, by how a person sleeps. I myself like to sleep (or used to before this happened), with my forearm under my pillow and my head. I have slept this way all of my life and it is a very hard habit to break. Nowadays, if I sleep like this on my right side, I will wake up in the middle of the night with a throbbing pain I feel deep inside the upper arm, from the shoulder to the elbow. And the elbow gets this funny, tingly feeling when I try to pull my arm out from underneath my pillow. Then for the rest of the night I can't even sleep on that arm at all. Since I rarely sleep on my back or my stomach, this restriction is really interrupting a good night's sleep.


But I am not convinced that it is the sleeping position that started this problem. I think that may aggravate it, but I think the initial injury was caused by the chest press machine I used at the gym at the beginning of the summer. I think I had a little too much weight on the machine one day. I felt the twinge, which was more than a twinge, but I ignored it at the time. That was a bad idea. But then I continued to use that machine with the same weight a couple times after that, until one time I really felt something sharp in my shoulder and upper arm and I couldn’t lift the bar anymore.


Sometimes I don’t know what in the heck I am thinking.


But I didn't have trouble sleeping on my side until a few weeks ago, which is a couple months after I have started carrying a laptop backpack to work. A backpack is a lot easier to get on and off the bus, but it is very heavy, especially when it is loaded down with an 8 lb laptop and battery pack, my lunch, purse, 2 pairs of glasses, umbrella, a eReader, an Ipod, cell phone, 2 sets of keys (office and car), workout clothes (not shoes, thank goodness), maps and bus schedules, sunglasses, and, when I remember, the newspaper.


And I sling this all over my right shoulder when I get off the bus. I do wear it on my back eventually, but I start by putting it on my right shoulder first. I don’t want to know how much it weighs because if I knew that it would probably make the backpack feel heavier.


I know I need to go to a doctor to have an official diagnosis, but I also suspect that eventually I will have to figure out an alternative to the backpack, load less weight on the chest press, and get used to a new sleeping position.


Just my body’s way of reminding me that age has caught up with me, I guess.

Bricks and The Blade

Yesterday I received an email from Whitman Walker Clinic, a charitable organization that provides health care and support services to the LGBT community in DC, VA and MD, and I was disheartened to learn that this informational newsletter email would no longer be sent to subscribers since the coordinator at WWC was leaving to go back to school and apparently no one else was going to fill her position.

Then, at the end of that email there was a note that the Washington Blade, which has been the free newspaper for the LGBT community in Washington, DC for over 40 years had stopped publication.

Whaaat!!

How did I miss that! I felt like I was dealt a double whammy in one email!

On Monday morning, Nov 16th, 2009, the Blade employees arrived for work and were told to pack up and be out by midday. The paper’s parent company Windows Media, had apparently been having financial problems for some time (like many newspapers) and the Blade employees knew at least since last summer (when they put in a bid to buy the newspaper) that the newspaper was in trouble. But no action had been taken on their offer to buy and on Monday they were told they no longer had jobs and that all photographs, writings and materials pertaining to newspapers published through Windows Media were under control of the bankruptcy court.

So the last paper published by the Washington Blade was dated November 13, 2009, one month after it’s 40th year anniversary.

And AJ and I were oblivious to this when she picked a Blade up last Saturday at a Borders bookstore in Woodbridge, VA. And we have it, here at home, sitting on the coffee table in the living room. We don’t always pick up a Blade, because we can never find one in the bookstores here in Fredericksburg. If they were distributed around here, they were always well hidden. So we either had to make a special trip “up north” or, more likely, I would look at it online.

But I liked looking at the Blade in newspaper form, whenever I found one. Some people I spoke to this weekend said they didn’t like the new format or the way the Blade started covering more national rather than local news. Others said hard-copy newspapers aren’t so important anymore, since there are many other online choices available now for information pertaining to the LGBT community.

But I liked that the Blade covered national and local events. I liked the “one stop” reading. And I also liked that hard-copy advertisers were willing to openly support the LGBT community. I find online advertisements to be not only annoying, but controlling and privacy invading. If I select an ad online I am either directed to a totally different website, and/or cookies are installed on my hard drive or, as generally occurs with my older laptop, the screen completely freezes up because I refuse to install the latest Java software or who knows what. Or, even worse, I could accidentally click on a malicious website and get a virus. Usually, though, I just get annoyed because I can never seem to get back to what I am reading.

A newspaper doesn’t track what advertisement you circle with a pencil, or where your eye lingers, or what page you fold over so that you can return to read it later. I know I am old fashioned, and I know anyone can find out anything about anyone if they try hard enough, but I just don’t think it is any of their business which advertisements I am interested in. Maybe I am just more concerned about privacy than most internet users.

But the other thing about hard-copy advertising is that everyone can see the businesses that support the LGBT community, not just the individuals who choose to look at a particular website. Just the act of allowing a hard-copy newspaper, such as the Blade, to be available to the public inside a “brick and mortar” establishment says a lot about the management in that establishment and, more importantly, the surrounding community where that establishment is located. So while a Borders bookstore in Fredericksburg, VA may not allow free distribution of the Blade inside it’s walls because it isn’t “appropriate” for the community, a Borders in Charlottesville or Woodbridge, VA will. Online websites cater to those individuals that choose to look at that website, but brick and mortar establishments cater to the local community.

But the good news, for me anyway, is that the fired employees of the Blade have gotten together to publish a new free weekly newspaper called the DC Agenda and last week they created a website to collect money for virtual bricks that they could use to publish that newspaper. And they have a online version too.

I am not so sure I am thrilled with the new name, but I really didn’t think the Blade was that inspiring either since it always sounded kind of violent. But that is just me.

So I can’t do anything about the loss of the WWC newsletter email, but I can help a little with the newspaper. So I gave up some of my privacy and donated, with the hope that someday more communities will be willing to accept a hard-copy LGBT newspaper, whatever the name, in their local bookstore. I hope it succeeds.