The Langley Finance Department has solved its own enigma ahead of the city’s popular Mystery Weekend.

Tuesday night during a city council meeting, Finance Director Kelly Beech cleared up some misconceptions about the issue.

There was never a spare, previously unaccounted $1 million in the city’s accounts, she explained, but instead a variance in reconciling the financial software with the bank. There were some other minor recording errors that contributed to the variance between the software’s fund balance reports and bank statements. All recording errors have since been corrected, and the software is once again reporting fund balances accurately.

Beech had theorized that improperly recorded investment interest caused the inaccurate reporting, which turned out to be the case. While investment interest was being reported, it wasn’t tying to the fund balance. She wondered if city staff turnover in 2022 had something to do with the errors. She confirmed there was no fraud.

Now, the focus is on a budget amendment, which will be completed within the first quarter.

“We know precisely what our fund balance is,” Beech said. “We are within $4,500 of the estimate that we had when we began our budget process in November.”

However, revenues have not kept pace with costs, and the city has had to make some tough calls recently, including the end of passport services and the part-time passport agent position.

“The city now has to look at implementing furloughs, limiting lobby hours and potentially selling city-owned property in order to stay in the black,” Beech said.

Mayor Kennedy Horstman acknowledged that Beech’s efforts were the result of months and months of work.

Councilmember Craig Cyr said it’s tremendously comforting to know that when the city gets a number, the city knows that that number is what reconciles at the bank.

“It’s a strange feeling to go through a budgeting process and you don’t know how much things have changed or how far they are off,” he said.

Beech said she is working on creating documentation of how processes should run in order to produce effective and valuable reports in the future that avoid this issue.