HOPEWELL – The city’s embattled treasurer wound up going before City Council Tuesday night to defend her decision to manually send out real estate tax bills this year, saying it would help her determine if bills returned to the office was the fault of the mailing vendor.
Shannon Foskey was not scheduled to speak at the meeting but was invited to the podium by Vice Mayor Jasmine Gore as the Robert Bobb Group was updating council on the progress of its work. RBG was hired by the city last year to help it reboot the city’s fiscal future following years of problems with Hopewell’s money-management practices, and Foskey’s office has been pegged by the firm as being near the nucleus of the issues.
She was called up after RBG principal Heather Ness told council she “stuffed envelopes” earlier in the week while training the office on new standard operating procedures. Asked by Ward 1 Councilor Rita Joyner why the office was not using its mail vendor to do it, Ness said she understood that Foskey was doing it “as a test” of her office’s mail vendor.
Ness said she knew of the process because of the training she conducted.
“We were doing standard operating practices, and I was concerned that not everyone was paying full attention,” Ness told council. She then told the office staff to focus on the SOPs and took over the envelope-stuffing.
“I said, ‘Please let me do the bills while you do the standard operating procedures,’” Ness said. “So, I stuffed envelopes. I did it, so if the bills are wrong, it’s my fault.”
The latter comment prompted some nervous laughter both at the podium and on the dais. Ness later added that the manual mailing “was a one-off and not usually the way” the bills are sent.
Joyner did not appear amused, calling the process “an archaic thing to do in this day in time.”
Foskey: Choice was mine
The treasurer unexpectedly walked into council chambers about halfway through Ness’ presentation and sat near the back of the room. After being acknowledged by Gore, the treasurer came to the podium to explain the mailing decision.
Foskey said her office “received so many return addresses coming back” on the personal property tax bills, that led her to question if the mailing vendor she used was fulfilling its end of the contract.
“I decided just for the real estate bills this year to see if I could physically send these bills out on their own and see if we got as many returns as we did with [the vendor],” Foskey told council. Despite issues with the MUNIS system, she said the office was able to get the bills sealed and planning to mail them on the day after the council meeting.
“We got a check getting ready to go to the post office,” Foskey said.
There were more than 5,000 real estate tax bills to be sent out, the treasurer told council, adding that she expected to get them in the mail on Wednesday.
Tension in the air
Foskey’s appearance at the podium was brief but tense. As she approached the podium where Ness was standing, she kept her focus on the council dais and never made eye contact with Ness or Robert Bobb sitting on the front row next to her. After she finished speaking, she walked away again without acknowledging any of them.
Prior to Foskey stepping up, Ness answered Joyner’s question about the appropriateness of the manual mailing by saying, “That’s a question you’d have to ask the treasurer.” After further comments from Joyner, Ness said she did “not know if it’s an inappropriate test that way they are doing that.”
In its ongoing assessment of the lack of internal controls on the city’s accounts-receivable and accounts-payable procedures, RBG frequently singled out Foskey in her role as Hopewell’s primary check writer and receiver. The firm said its audit revealed many inaccuracies in the way the treasurer’s office handled its business and noted that those inaccuracies led to the city bouncing some checks.
RBG forged an agreement between city administration and Foskey’s office to temporarily transfer check-writing authority to the city. While hesitant to do so, Foskey told The Progress-Index at the time she was doing so “for the betterment of the city.”
That recommendation also came with a suggestion that the city petition the 2025 Virginia General Assembly for a charter change that would permanently switch the accounting aspect of the treasurer’s office to city administration. The treasurer is a constitutional officer, meaning she is elected directly by Hopewell voters and council has no direct authority over her.
Setting the table for the tension
Earlier in the RBG presentation to council, the treasurer’s office was again brought up as a so-called “risk factor” to Hopewell’s future fiscal success. According to the presentation, RBG recommended council “closely monitor” the treasure’s report at the next Finance Committee meeting.
“The risk factors identified should not be dismissed as not having a serious impact on our ability to deliver the [state-required] audits in the proposed timeline,” a PowerPoint accompanying the presentation stated.
Hopewell has not had a clean audit of its books from the state in almost a decade, and the last four yearly audits were never sent. That prompted the city to hire RBG at a cost now deemed to be more than $2 million to review and rewrite Hopewell’s fiscal structure.
The PowerPoint also suggested council review rules from the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board that address “consideration of fraud in a financial statement audit.” The PCAOB is a nonprofit group that enforces professional standards in public audits.
RBC said its tax-receivable procedure proposals were necessary “as a result of the fraud risk factors that are present.”
Crunch time for the city
There are about six weeks left until the start of the new fiscal year. With that comes expectations that the 22 citywide SOPs the Bobb Group is establishing will be understood by everyone on city staff and ready for implementation July 1.
Ness told council that all SOPs have been finalized and in the end stages of review. She cautioned the city to be extra vigilant between now and July 1 to make sure city staff is on board.
“If you listen to nothing I have said or will say ... the most important thing I want to underline here is that participation from the city is necessary before we go live in July,” she said. Between now and then, Ness said one area of concern is employee availability in all of the group’s working sessions with them.
"We are putting all of these into a training environment, and we need your team to test them,” Ness said.
“Everything in the next six weeks needs to be cleaned up and everyone needs to be marching to the same drumbeat,” she added, “or we’re going to have issues with [fiscal year] ‘25.”
Bill Atkinson (he/him/his) is an award-winning journalist who covers breaking news, government and politics. Reach him at batkinson@progress-index.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @BAtkinson_PI.
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