T.H. City debt numbers conflict with audit

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (WTHI) - Terre Haute city debt is called into question again. New numbers released from the state board of accounts show conflicting numbers on the amount of debt.
    
In meeting after meeting of the city council Terre Haute’s debt keeps coming up.  If you remember from past stories the city entered last year with a debt around 4.5 million dollars.
    
But a release from the Indiana’s State Board of Accounts last week added 1.9 million dollars to that figure from what it calls: Expenditures for Accruals.
   
That makes the debt entering 2012 closer to 6.4 million dollars. To get to the bottom of the story we sat down with Mayor Duke Bennett to get an explanation.

"You take the four and a half million dollar deficit from 2011and then you add to it future liability,” Bennett said, “In 2012 we have a pension payment we have to make."
    
The mayor says the discrepancy is as simple as that.

"We pay that (pension money), we had it in the budget for 2012 and we paid that out, “Bennett said, “When 2012 ends the same thing will happen we'll have a cash balance for the 2012 General Fund and they will add the liability (pension funds) we have for 2013  onto that."
    
But, the mayor promises that when the 2012 report comes out, the city's debt will have shrunk from the 2011 report.

"A year from now, you'll be able to see the progress we've made in 2012. Bringing (debt) back to where it needs to be,” the mayor said.
    
Numbers the mayor says will add up to a smaller debt for next year and in the next few years he hopes the cash balance turns from a negative to a positive; Or at least returns to zero.