Cranford’s Financial Issues Continue, Acting CFO Reports

Acting CFO Ken DeRoberts and Assistant CFO Lavona Patterson on Monday discussed the township’s slow progress on amending its financial issues.

DeRoberts was hired in March to help restore the Township’s financial standing and Patterson was hired shortly after to eventually become the CFO of the Township as she works with DeRoberts, according to Cranford Chronicle.  A permanent person has not filled the CFO position in Cranford since 2010.

Mayor Tom Hannen questioned why several of the Township’s past financial issues were taking so long to rectify. DeRoberts pointed out that much of their work has been addressing current problems and its been a slow process to fix over 20 years of financial woes in the Township.

“Our goal is to get Cranford rated as close to AAA as possible — where it should be,” the Chronicle quoted DeRoberts saying. “In order to do that, we have to be doing a lot of things proactively that we’re just getting to. We’re dying to get this stuff cleaned up, and getting the operational things behind us. We’re cleaning up stuff we found from 20 years ago. But thankfully we have your support and we are going to get this done.”

Township Administrator Joe Hartnett also commented on the issues, citing that the lack of personnel has caused DeRoberts and Patterson to run around completing daily tasks before they can work on what needs to be done to get Cranford’s rating up.