Several readers have commented on Branson's Finance Director Farris Brown's correction. I've been criticized for not coming down hard enough on him.
First off, I didn't report the figure verbally shared by Branson, Missouri City Administrator Terry Dody. I was at the meeting; however, asked for a much broader set of stats from the city two days prior. Brown didn't deliver the stats in the time frame I had anticipated (within three days). The documents were delivered a couple of days after the press release printed below. I'm going to ask Brown, but here's my hunch : Brown had a line item for Ticket Sales and another for Resellers. The line item was doubled up and a preliminary figure was given to Dody. They fixed it quick and put out this press release. I didn't hand the story to a newspaper editor nor published the statement on this site, therefore, I didn't run the correction. The Branson Daily News did. I was waiting for the backup. They made a mistake and fixed it quick. Is it unfair of me to accept this and believe it won't happen again? Your thoughts?
CITY REVISES APRIL TOURISM TAX REVENUES
Revenues less after new finance director
double checks income figures
Branson’s finance director has adjusted his April tourism tax revenue figures downward after he discovered a miscalculation.
Earlier this week, the city released figures showing the tourism tax revenue for April at $1,013,726, a 38 percent increase from April 2006. That would have been the first time tourism tax revenue topped a million dollars in any April. However, a further review by Finance Director Ferris Brown resulted in current collected revenues being $768,484. The new figure is still 5.2 percent ahead of April 2006, and for the 2007 fiscal year, which started in October, tourism tax revenue has increased 12.4 percent over the same time period last year. April 2006 tourism tax revenue was $730,282.
According to Brown, who was hired March 1, he is still learning how the tourism tax collection process works.
In the case of the April tourism tax revenues, Brown said he released the April figures too early before he had the opportunity to conduct the closing procedure that is done each month. The closing procedure takes several days following the end of the month to complete. It was during this closing procedure that Brown said he discovered his error of misreading a journal entry. “In misreading the journal entry, I counted some tax income twice,” Brown said.
