The Jersey City Council reviewed the Corrective Action Plan to address several long-standing issues raised in the 2025 audit, including knowing all the city’s fixed assets, during their caucus on Monday.
CFO/Finance Director Bill Viqueira explained they are required to annually audit the city’s books and “prepare and submit a Corrective Action Plan as part of the annual audit process,” which helped the auditing firm identify $94 million in deferred charges last year.
“Our Corrective Action Plan contains 17 findings, two of which are considered material weaknesses. None of the issues … are new. Some go back as far as 2014. Audits as far back as 2014 have identified that the city does not have an accounting of its fixed assets,” he explained.
“We’d like to highlight that we have already put out an RFP (request for proposals). Responses are due early October. We expect to retain outside resources for the city’s fixed assets and implement a system for managing and tracking fixed assets thereafter.”
That of course sparked some questions from the governing body.
“On the fixed assets, under normal circumstances, is this something that the Financial Department would be able to do on its own, and we’re only putting it out to RFP because it’s been so many years without a real accounting of our fixed assets?” Ward D Councilman Jake Ephros asked.
Viqueira replied that it would not be realistic to do a complete inventory internally, even under the best circumstances.
“However, properly tracked and kept up to date, this would not be the type of exercise that would be required on any kind of regular basis,” he added.
Ephros followed up by asking how often this would need to be either performed or updated.
“I have never in my career seen a complete inventory of an entire fix asset done once and then properly tracked on a regular basis. The inventory should not have to be done from start to finish as long as you keep it up to date. The fixed asset accounting should remain up to date,” expressed Viqueira.
Councilman at-Large Michael Griffin then said he was also expecting to see the city’s plan for monthly reconciliation.
“It’s a material weakness. That is the first we anticipate having corrected within the next couple of months. I think it’s my responsibility,” Viqueira said.
“We have that process well underway. We are working … with our internal resources to address,” he adding, noting that five steps have been recommended. “A couple are completed. Most are ongoing. But we do anticipate having that done over the next couple of months.”
Ward F Councilman Frank “Educational” Gilmore declared that this should have been approved prior to the budget and the memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the state related to the $105 million loan the city received.
“Are any of those things implemented as it relates to the Corrective Action Plan for this budget or the budget that passed?”
Viqueira stated that usually an audit and the Corrective Action Plan to address its findings are done after the annual budget process.
“Most of these findings are repeating findings. They’ve been in Corrective Action Plans year after year and clearly had not been addressed,” he noted.
“We intend to address them. We have names, dates assigned to each and every single one of them. Many related to Finance, which I take responsibility for. Most will be completed in 2026. A couple rollover into ‘27.”
He further stated that the fixed asset inventory could take months.
“I like the things in the Corrective Action Plan. Something that’s a little troubling though is I would like to have seen like benchmarks and I guess timeframes of when the Corrective Action Plan should have been cured. Can you speak a little to that?” Gilmore inquired.
“Most of them will be completed by the end of this year. So we’re really just talking about a month to three months to complete,” Viqueira answered.
He said three will roll into next year since two require funding from next year’s budget.
“The other one is the fixed asset. I can get you more specifics on the fixed asset timeline once we get responses from outside consultants. First week of October is when they’re due,” Viqueira said.
“Could you just speak to what happened in the past when these findings were identified? What, if anything, in the past was done? What’s different this time?” Councilman at-Large Rolando Lavarro asked.
Viqueira said it would be difficult for him to speak to that since he was not at City Hall at that time.
“ … I am certainly making the commitment to doing everything I can to make sure those corrective actions are implemented and those problems are fixed,” he concluded.
The Jersey City Council will convene at 6 p.m. Wednesday at City Hall, 280 Grove St., for their regular meeting, with the session also streaming live on Microsoft Teams.
